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FIFA executive committee members 'being investigated by Michael Garcia'

Three current FIFA executive committee members are under investigation by ethics chief Michael Garcia following his probe into World Cup bidding, the Press Association has reported.

Angel Maria Villar Llona, of Spain, Michel D'Hooghe, of Belgium, and Thailand's Worawi Makudi are among those being investigated for possible ethics code breaches, sources close to the world governing body told PA.

D'Hooghe, who was on the FIFA executive committee at the time of the 2010 vote on the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, said he "simply had to clarify some well-known cases" to Garcia, the news agency added.

In a statement sent by email, he stressed that his son Pieter's move to become a surgeon at the Aspetar sports medicine hospital in Qatar in 2012 was unrelated.

"The nomination of my son was a purely medical decision, without any involvement of myself and without any relation with the bid," he wrote.

And in a separate email to the Daily Telegraph, he said: "I have given all the necessary correct answers, and suppose my case is closed.''

In 2011, D'Hooghe said he had accepted a painting from a senior figure involved in the Russia 2018 bid, but said the picture had no value.

Former FIFA executive committee member Franz Beckenbauer is also under investigation by American attorney Garcia, along with Harold Mayne-Nicholls, from Chile.

Mayne-Nicholls headed the inspection team that compiled reports on the countries bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Last week, Garcia announced that "a number of individuals" have had formal cases opened against them.

He and German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, the chairman of the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA's ethics committee, released a joint statement last week in which they confirmed the investigations.

FIFA has also lodged a separate criminal complaint with the Swiss attorney general.

The Garcia-Eckert statement said Garcia's full report into his investigation into the bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups would be passed to Domenico Scala, the chairman of FIFA's audit and compliance committee.

That committee would then determine how much of the information should be made available to FIFA's executive committee.

Given that three members of the executive committee are being investigated by Garcia, it is unclear how much -- if any -- of the information contained in the report can now be shared.

There have been increasing calls for Garcia's full report to be made public.

British Conservative MP Damian Collins, who described the Eckert report as a "whitewash," told the Commons the "chaos" at FIFA surrounding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding showed it was not fit to govern the world game.

Earlier this month, Eckert cleared Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, saying rule breaches by the bidding countries were "of very limited scope."

Garcia responded by saying he would lodge an appeal against the decision due to "numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts."

FIFA has not made any comment on the latest news.

It has been reported that UEFA president Michel Platini is not under investigation by Garcia and will not face any sanctions.

Meanwhile, FIFA has announced that Alberto Colaco, a former general secretary of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), has been banned for three years for accepting money for his vote in an Asian confederation election.

"Mr Colaco accepted a payment in the context of the elections for the FIFA executive committee at the AFC Congress in May 2009 -- won narrowly by Mohamed bin Hammam -- while he was serving as the general secretary and voting delegate of the All India Football Federation," the statement said.

Colaco was found guilty of violating rules governing accepting gifts and bribery and corruption.

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