Head of Russian WC winning bid denies obstructing a FIFA investigation into corruption

Описание: (13 Nov 2014) The man who led Russia's winning bid for the 2018 World Cup has denied obstructing a FIFA investigation into corruption during the bid process.
Both Russia and Qatar, which won the bid for the 2022 World Cup, were cleared of corruption by a FIFA judge on Thursday, but the ruling noted that computers from the Russian bid had been destroyed and emails were unavailable.
Alexei Sorokin, who now runs the local organising committee in Russia, said that his country's bid was transparent.
Speaking at the World Football Forum in Moscow on Thursday, Sorokin insisted that Russia had fulfilled its obligations to participate in and comply with the investigation.
FIFA ethics judge Joachim Eckert formally ended a probe into the bidding contests earlier, almost four years after the vote by the governing body's scandal-tainted executive committee.
No proof was found of bribes or voting pacts in a probe hampered by a lack of access to evidence and uncooperative witnesses.
FIFA spokesman Walter De Gregorio suggested that that there might have been "some individuals that did go against code of ethics", but said the bidding process had not been put in question.
Even so, just hours after Eckert cleared Russia and Qatar of corruption in their winning World Cup bids, American prosecutor Michael Garcia, who led the investigation said he would appeal the decision to close the case.


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