Michael Garcia, the Kirkland & Ellis partner tasked with probing allegations of corruption at FIFA, has slammed football's governing body for publishing an "erroneous" summary of his investigation. 

Garcia (pictured), who serves as chairman of the investigatory chamber of FIFA's ethics committee, today (13 November) said the 42-page report published by the committee's chairman Hans-Joachim Eckert misrepresented his findings.

"Today's decision by the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber contains numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions detailed in the Investigatory Chamber's report," said Garcia, in a statement issued by Kirkland. "I intend to appeal this decision to the FIFA Appeal Committee."

Eckert's report effectively rules out allegations of corruption in the successful bids by Qatar and Russia to host the 2022 and 2018 World Cups, stating that rule breaches by the countries were "of very limited scope".

FIFA welcomed the report, stating that "a degree of closure has been reached".

Garcia's extraordinary rebuttal of Eckert's claims follows his 18-month investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption, which he presented in a report to FIFA's executive committee in September and which the game's governing body is refusing to make public.

He has called for as much of his report as possible to be made available to the public. According to a Guardian report, he told an audience of US lawyers last month that FIFA's "investigation and adjudication process operates in most parts unseen and unheard".

"That's a kind of system which might be appropriate for an intelligence agency but not for an ethics compliance process in an international sports institution that serves the public and is the subject of intense public scrutiny."

"An ethics committee – even a serious, independent ethics committee backed by a strong code of ethics – is not a silver bullet," he said. "What is required is leadership: leadership that sends a message that the rules apply to everyone; leadership that wants to understand and learn from any mistakes or mis-steps the ethics committee may have identified; leadership that makes it clear to everyone – 'This is what we've set up the ethics committee to do, this is why they do it, and this is what they've done'."

Garcia joined Kirkland in 2008 after a career in government, latterly as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

He was first appointed as chair of FIFA's independent ethics committee in 2012 to help investigate claims of corruption. Last year, his tenure was extended for a further four years to mid-2017, after receiving backing from more than 97 per cent of FIFA's 200-member congress.