• Former US attorney will examine Sepp Blatter's role
• Hosting rights to Russia and Qatar World Cups to be probed
Fifa has appointed the former United States attorney Michael J Garcia as the lead prosecutor to investigate allegations of corruption in world football.
One of Garcia's first tasks will be to inspect a Swiss court document on a World Cup kickbacks scandal to evaluate the behaviour of Sepp Blatter and other senior officials in the affair.
"He will have not only to write, but the duty to have this case analysed on ethic, moral matters and then to report back to the executive committee," Blatter said at a news conference.
Garcia should have authority to order fresh probes into other old cases, including claims about how Fifa's executive committee members awarded hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
His appointment by that same ruling board is seen as a crucial step in Blatter's promised anti-corruption reforms.
Fifa also selected the German judge Hans-Joachim Eckert to chair the judging chamber of its ethics court.
Garcia and Eckert are regarded as key independent figures from outside the so-called "football family" who can help restore Fifa's credibility after bribery and vote-buying scandals.
Blatter's ruling board agreed to create a two-chamber ethics court to prosecute cases more effectively after a panel of anti-corruption experts advising Fifa said previous cases were "insufficiently investigated."
The 13-member panel, led by the Swiss law professor Mark Pieth, wants Garcia to examine claims surrounding how Russia and Qatar came to get World Cup hosting rights in a December 2010 poll of Fifa's executive committee.
Several senior Fifa officials were reported to have received payments or sought unethical favours from bidders, and Blatter has acknowledged that some breached bidding rules by joining a pact to back Qatar and the failed Spain-Portugal bid.
Garcia and Eckert had to fulfil a Fifa statute that neither they, nor their families, had a paid connection to football in the past four years.
Garcia was linked to an expected vacancy to lead the US Federal Bureau of Investigation last year, before President Barack Obama extended the term of the 10-year incumbent Robert Mueller.
During the administration of President George W Bush, Garcia headed the 20,000-employee Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency in the Department of Homeland Security.
Eckert, who was a presiding state court judge in Munich, is a specialist in high-profile bribery cases including one which exposed billion-dollar payments made by the German telecommunications firm Siemens.
Pieth's group suggested four candidates for each of the positions decided on Tuesday, including Eckert. Fifa looked elsewhere for Garcia's nomination.
Fifa declined to appoint the war crimes prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina who was widely reported to be the advisory panel's preferred choice. Read More
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