Even by Fifa's standards, this investigation is farce on a Shakespearean scale

So honesty is the best policy? I wonder what a presumably red-faced FA hierarchy will be making of that moral stance today after getting a very public dressing down from Fifa.

The irony beyond all ironies is that the strikes from Fifa's cane have come for trying to "curry favour" with of all people, Jack Warner.

Warner, at the time, was a very influential figure at Fifa as a vice president, as a member of the all-powerful Executive Committee (ExCo) and as head of the North, Central America and Caribbean Federation (Concacaf) which brought with it three of the 22 World Cup votes. But that was then.

Subsequently, Warner has been suspended from all football-related activity over corruption charges.

What is embarrassing for the England 2018 bid team is that while the Fifa report recognises Warner had been "showering them with inappropriate requests", it states that in several cases those requests were accommodated and as a result "damaged the integrity of the ongoing bidding process".

One of those requests, the report says, even involved finding a relative of his a part-time job in the UK.

Another was funding a £35,000 dinner for Caribbean Officials - although this expenditure, made public by the FA at the time, is dwarfed by the $1.8m handed over by Qatar to sponsor a congress for the Confederation of African football.

At that congress Qatar claimed exclusive rights to market its bid to senior African football officials. Yes, 1.8 million greenbacks.

England's campaign ended in a spectacular failure; the bid team spent £21m which translated into two votes, one of which was the UK's own delegate.

The report today commends the bid team for being very open and helpful during Michael Garcia's process. Maybe if they knew where it was going they may have thought twice.

Direct competitors Russia, for example, were criticised for being uncooperative.

It emerged that the computers they used during their bid were leased and after their victory were sent back to where they came from and summarily destroyed.

Garcia has no police powers and could not compel people outside the Fifa family to speak to him.

He could not seize phone records, analyse email trails or look at bank statements, unless, of course, individuals agreed to it.

And if anyone was up to anything underhand, then why would they?

He was never likely to find any evidence of enough wrongdoing to warrant either Russia or especially Qatar being stripped of their tournaments.

And that makes an assumption that any wrongdoing exists. Both countries have always denied being party to any dark arts.

His investigation, however thorough, has been hamstrung from the start.

The embarrassment for England is nothing, though, compared to the shame Fifa should be feeling today, if indeed those that run the world governing body are not immune to such emotions.

Garcia, on seeing Judge Eckert's interpretation of his investigation, was incandescent.

Eckert's statement, he said, contained "numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions".

The upshot is that Fifa's investigator disagrees with the Fifa's ethics judge's conclusions and is going to appeal to, er, Fifa.

Even by Fifa's standards, this is farce on a Shakespearean scale.

When Fifa welcomed a "degree of closure," as Eckert's report was published; little did they know that actually, the complete opposite was true.

Of course we don't yet know what exactly Garcia's beef is.

It may prove to have no material significance but until we do know, as so often, every time Fifa tries to slam the book shut, someone will find a reason to open it up again.