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U.S. investigators said they are continuing a probe into corruption against the senior leaders of FIFA, even as the sport's governing body on Thursday found nothing amiss in its 2018 and 2022 bidding contests, almost four years after the vote by the scandal-tainted executive committee. But according to U.S. law enforcement officials, the FBI, which is leading the U.S. probe, will continue on the case. Investigators told CNN on Thursday they are moving ahead with their investigation, which could result in charges against senior FIFA members, the officials said. FIFA prosecutor Michael Garcia said he will appeal FIFA ethics judge Joachim Eckert's decision to close the investigation into how Russia and Qatar won World Cup hosting rights. The former U.S. prosecutor said Eckert's report released by FIFA "contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions detailed'' in Garcia's own report. FBI agents based in New York said they will also continue their three-year-old investigation, which will likely benefit from the findings of Garcia. The FBI said it plans to seek access to Garcia's full report, which FIFA hasn't yet released. The FIFA ethics committee announced Thursday that it was closing its investigation into alleged corruption in the 2018 and 2022 bidding process that awarded the World Cup to Russia and Qatar, respectively. No proof was found of bribes or voting pacts in a probe hampered by a lack of access to evidence and uncooperative witnesses. The FBI declined to offer an official comment, the CNN report said. The probe includes the cooperation of a former top FIFA official who has provided documents and recordings of meetings with colleagues, law enforcement officials told CNN. The New York Daily News, which reported on the cooperation of former FIFA official Chuck Blazer, quoted Blazer as saying: "I just can't talk about that."
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