FIFA "was accused of a cover-up" Saturday after its top ethics judge revealed that "the long-awaited report into alleged corruption in the bidding to stage the 2018 and 2022 World Cups would never be published," according to the LONDON TIMES. FIFA Ethics Committee Adjudicatory Chamber Chair Hans-Joachim Eckert said that he "would personally ensure that the 350-page report and 200,000 pages of evidence delivered to him this month by its investigator, Michael Garcia, remained under lock and key for ever." The Munich judge said that he and his deputy "would be the only people to read the report" and said that FIFA’s rules prohibited him from making its contents public to anyone, including FIFA President Sepp Blatter, and all of FIFA's 27 exec members. Eckert’s "vow of secrecy will dash hopes" that the report, which cost at least £6M ($9.8M) to produce, "will provide a decisive answer to allegations of corruption in the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid, including evidence of bribery contained in millions of documents leaked to this newspaper." Commons Culture, Media & Sport Committee Chair John Whittingdale said, “I’m absolutely horrified. The one thing we’ve always been told by FIFA is that there would be a proper investigation and we should wait for the Garcia report. But if the Garcia report is going to be buried so that we have no idea what the conclusions are." Alexandra Wrage, an int'l bribery expert who resigned in frustration from FIFA’s independent governance panel last year, said the decision to “cloak the entire report in secrecy” would fuel public suspicions that the whole investigation had been a “hollow exercise to keep critics at bay” (LONDON TIMES, 9/21).