Fifa Executive Committee prepares for vote on Garcia report publication

      The Fifa Executive Committee has assembled for its two-day meeting in Marrakech with the notorious Garcia report at the heart of its agenda

The Fifa Executive Committee began its two-day meeting at the luxury Mamounia hotel in Marrakech on Thursday with the resignation of chief investigator Michael Garcia dominating the agenda. Garcia quit his post in protest on Wednesday over the handling of his report on the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

The American lawyer was frustrated that only a 42-page summary of his findings was presented by adjudicatory chief Hans-Joachim Eckert while an appeal to Fifa for full disclosure also fell on deaf ears before he walked away.

The 27-strong ExCo is expected to take a vote on whether or not a redacted version of Garcia's report should now be published as public dismay with the world governing body grows by the day.

Domenico Scala, the Italian head of Fifa's audit and compliance committee, will address the ExCo before the proposal brought by German delegate Theo Zwanziger is voted upon.

Zwanziger is seeking a relaxation of Fifa's ethics rules which state that "only the final decisions already notified to the addressees may be made public."

It has been reported that Fifa president Sepp Blatter wants to limit any vote to members who were serving at the time of the awarding of the World Cups in December 2010. That would rule out many of the new faces who have taken their place on the ExCo since then.

Some of those newly-arrived ExCo members are pushing hard for publication; Concacaf chief Jeffrey Webb and AFC supremo Prince Ali bin Al Hussein are among those to have gone public with their views. If the motion is passed, it is expected to be a close-run vote.

The Moroccan summit has been conducted in absolute secrecy with the Mamounia grounds off limits to the public while the ExCo members meet.

The assembled media was also dispersed from in front of the Sofitel, where Blatter spent part of Thursday morning, before the 78-year-old made a quick getaway in a blacked-out motorcade through a side exit.

Blatter is expected to meet the press on Friday afternoon following the meeting's conclusion to take the questions from the world's press