German FA boss resigns over 2006 WC scandal
BERLIN: German football association President Wolfgang Niersbach resigned yesterday over a 2006 World Cup scandal that has tarnished the reputation of the world’s biggest soccer federation.
Niersbach, who is being investigated for tax evasion in relation to the affair, said he was taking the political responsibility for a controversial 6.7million euro ($7.22-million) payment to FIFA that was allegedly used to bribe officials of world soccer’s governing body to vote for Germany’s World Cup bid. He again denied any wrongdoing.
“In order to protect the DFB and the position, I step down as DFB president with a heavy heart,” Niersbach told reporters. “I decided to resign because I realised I had to take the political responsibility.” At the heart of the investigation is the 6.7 million euro payment from the DFB to FIFA in 2005 that Der Spiegel magazine alleged was a return on a loan from the then Adidas CEO Robert-Louis Dreyfus to help buy votes for Germany’s World Cup bid at the FIFA election in 2000.
“I was there from the first day of the bid for the 2006 World Cup until the end....and in all these years I worked not only in a clean way but also with passion and trust,” Niersbach later said in a statement issued through the DFB.
He had been at the DFB for a quarter of a century, climbing up from spokesman to general secretary and then president in 2012.
“That makes it even more depressing and painful to be confronted nine years later with processes I had nothing to do with. I want to make it clear once more that I was not aware of the payments in question. That’s what makes the decision to suffer the political consequence so much harder.”
Last week more than 50 police and tax investigators raided the DFB headquarters as well as Niersbach’s and other officials’ private homes. They were searching for evidence to back up suspicions by the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office that the president, a World Cup 2006 organising committee vice president, and two former committee colleagues did not pay tax on the controversial 6.7-million euro payment. The three are suspected of tax evasion and investigations are ongoing to determine whether they would be charged or not.
German magazine Der Spiegel’s report in October had claimed a slush fund had been set up with Louis-Dreyfus’ financial support to buy votes for Germany’s World Cup bid.
Both the DFB and Niersbach, as well as then organising chief Franz Beckenbauer, had rejected the votes-for-cash claims made by Der Spiegel.
But Niersbach admitted an internal investigation was underway to find out why the amount was paid to FIFA and what was it used for. Asked at a press conference on Oct. 22 why the DFB had paid FIFA the amount, Niersbach said: “I don’t know.” FIFA are also investigating the issue. — Reuters