Prince William, David Cameron embroiled in World Cup scandal

Prince William has been dragged into a World Cup storm. Photo / AP

Prince William and former British Prime Minister David Cameron have been dragged into a Fifa corruption scandal.

News of their involvement in England's failed bid to host the 2018 World Cup, which will take place in Russia, was made public when world football's governing body published in full a controversial internal report into the 2018 and 2022 bidding process for the sport's showpiece tournament.

Produced by Fifa's chief ethics investigator Michael Garcia in 2014, the report's contents have been kept secret until German newspaper Bild obtained a copy and started publishing it on Tuesday.

More damning revelations about Qatar's winning 2022 bid were expected from Bild on Wednesday, only for FIFA to spike its guns by publishing the whole report on its website.

The report claims Cameron and the Duke of Cambridge were at a meeting in which a vote-swapping deal between England and South Korea was discussed. Cameron reportedly asked the South Korean delegation to support England's bid, only to be told England would have to do the same for South Korea as it bid for the 2022 World Cup, according to the UK Telegraph.

The report says such a vote-swapping deal would have been in "violation of the anti-collusion rules".

The report says Cameron met FIFA vice-president Mong-Joon Chung (South Korea) in Prince William's suite at a Zurich hotel the night before the vote for the 2018 hosting rights in December 2010.

"The Prime Minister asked Mr Chung to vote for England's bid, and Mr Chung responded that he would if Mr (Geoff) Thompson (chairman of England's bid) voted for Korea (to host the 2022 tournament)," the report claims.

England officials in charge of organising the country's bid arranged jobs for the "adopted son" of FIFA vice-president Jack Warner at Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur (football clubs), and they were reportedly asked to engineer a meeting with the Queen for one FIFA official from South Africa. This official also raised the possibility of an honorary knighthood.

The report slams England's attempt to court Warner, who was also president of North, Central American and Caribbean football, alleging officials considered twinning his hometown in Trinidad and Tobago with an English village.

In 2009 the English Football Association also covered the costs of the Trinidad and Tobago Under-20 team when it stayed in Sheffield.

"England 2018's response shows an unfortunate willingness, time and again, to meet that expectation (of Mr Warner)," the report says.

England's hopes of hosting the 2018 World Cup were ended swiftly when its bid received only two votes, knocking it out of contention in the first round.

The report states there was "conduct by England 2018 that may not have met the standards set out in the FCE (FIFA code of ethics) or the bid rules.

"In many cases England 2018 accommodated or at least attempted to satisfy, the improper requests made by these Executive Committee members.

"While the bidding process itself, and the attitude of entitlement and expectation demonstrated by certain Executive Committee members in the exchanges discussed in detail above, place the bid team in a difficult position that fact does not excuse all of the conduct."

The first set of revelations from the so-called Garcia report painted a bleak picture of the background to the infamous 2010 vote that gave the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

Garcia had resigned as head of FIFA's investigatory body in December 2014 in protest after FIFA released a 40-page sanitised summary of his report which he disowned, describing it as "incomplete and erroneous". The full report referred to an array of suspect financial dealings including the sum of $2 million allegedly sent by a consultant for Qatar, Sandro Rosell, to the 10-year-old daughter of a FIFA official.

Garcia's investigation also revealed that one former FIFA executive committee member thanked Qatar by mail for a transfer of several hundred thousand euros just after Qatar was awarded the 2022 tournament.

The report also documents that three executive members of FIFA were flown to Rio de Janeiro for a private party ahead of the vote to decide who would host the 2022 World Cup.