World Cup 2018 bid: FA will show secret file to MPs

Former Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said the intelligence services helped compile the file (Getty Images)

The Football Association has agreed to make its secret file on Fifa members, compiled during England’s failed 2018 World Cup bid, available to MPs.

The former Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said the FA had agreed to make the file, which he believes was compiled with the help of the British intelligence services, available to be viewed by some members of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.

The document is thought to have been compiled on the 24 members of the Fifa executive committee who voted on the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in December 2010.

Sutcliffe, speaking in Brussels at the “New Fifa Now” summit, said: “Members of the committee are going to be allowed to see that file so we will see what was held at the time.”

Sutcliffe said that the FA had been reluctant to show the committee the file. “I think part of this file was compiled using the intelligence services,” he said. “The FA have been very cagey about it all. They were reluctant at first and said we could not see it, that it was restricted. Clearly it’s not.

“Public money was used on the bid from the bidding cities and the Government was asked to give guarantees, so we need to know about this.”

The former FA and England 2018 chairman Lord Triesman said last month the FA “apparently also have a secret dossier with potential evidence of corruption”.

Damian Collins MP, the Fifa reform campaigner who organised the summit, told the meeting that the FA’s previous willingness to co-operate had been “a bit of a sham”. He said: “I am glad the FA will be sharing that evidence. It’s a bit of a sham the way the FA sought to investigate David [Triesman’s] allegations when sitting on that evidence all the time.”

Rogers: Russia and Qatar decisions insane

Openly gay footballer Robbie Rogers has described the decisions to give Russia and Qatar the 2018 and 2022 World Cups as “insane”.

The LA Galaxy player fears for gay fans who make the trip to the two countries and told Sky Sports: “I would never pressure anyone into speaking about the issue but it is absolutely insane. If you look at the next few World Cups, they are in places where, if I were to go, I would possibly be imprisoned or beat up. It is pretty ridiculous.”

Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and Russia president Vladimir Putin said gay people at the Winter Olympics last year “should leave children alone”.

PA