Football
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Champagne and Platini want FIFA's WC corruption report made public

FIFA presidential candidate Jerome Champagne and UEFA president Michel Platini have become the latest high-profile figures to call for the public release of Michael Garcia's report into alleged World Cup voting corruption.

- Garcia blasts secrecy in corruption probe
- FIFA delays ruling on 2018, 2022 probe
- Blatter praises FIFA ethics
- FIFA urged to publicise Garcia report
- Carlisle: Smoke but no fire over Qatar

FIFA ethics investigator Garcia conducted over 75 interviews for his 350-page report, looking into alleged corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests in 2010. Russia and Qatar were chosen to host the respective tournaments, although the voting process has since come under much scrutiny.

Garcia and his team spent the last two years working on the report, which was handed over to FIFA ethics judge Joachim Eckert, who is due to examine the findings.

However, FIFA and Eckert have so far refused to make the report, or at least the key findings of it, public. Eckert can impose sanctions, but he has already said that no results are to be expected before 2015.

Throughout the week, Garcia and several high-ranking officials -- including FIFA vice-presidents Jeffrey Web, Prince Ali Bin-Hussein and Jim Boyce, as well as former chairman of FIFA's Independent Governance Committee Mark Pieth -- have urged world football's governing body to make the report public.

Champagne, who will run against current FIFA president Sepp Blatter in May 2015 for the role, has now added his voice to those calls as he tries to sharpen his image before the election.

"We need to know what happened before and after the vote," Champagne told Die Welt. "It is essential to protect the sanctity of the World Cup. A World Cup should not be overshadowed by those accusations."

Champagne also believes that the disclosure of the report will help FIFA's reform process -- something that he feels is vital.

"The image of FIFA has to be renewed. And that's why we need this report," he said.

Platini has also said that he will not oppose calls to disclose the report, with a statement issued on behalf of the UEFA president having been quoted in the Times.

The statement read: "Although there are certain constraints regarding the ethics code . . . [Platini] is in favour of disclosing as much as possible and would never stand in the way of such a move."

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