World Cup scandal engulfs ‘the Kaiser’
FRANZ Beckenbauer is under growing pressure to explain his part in Germany’s 2006 World Cup scandal amid reports of a document pointing the finger at the legendary footballer.
German football has lurched into a crisis over magazine Spiegel’s report alleging that the votes of four members of world soccer body Fifa’s executive committee were bought in 2000, when Germany narrowly won the vote to host the 2006 finals. At the centre of the scandal is a €6.7m payment, alleged to have been used to buy the support of Fifa’s executive committee.
The scandal took a dramatic twist last week, when police raided the Frankfurt headquarters of the German Football Association (DFB), which led to Wolfgang Niersbach resigning as DFB president on Monday.
State prosecutors have revealed that three men — including Niersbach, former DFB president Theo Zwanziger and former general secretary Horst Schmidt — are being investigated for tax fraud related to the Fifa payment.
Despite his pivotal position at the 2006 World Cup — first in leading the successful bid and later as chairman of the tournament’s organising committee — Beckenbauer, 70, has been tight-lipped. But now, German daily Bild claims to have seen a draft agreement, signed in part by Beckenbauer, which it says was aimed at “buying votes for the German bid”.
Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung also quoted sources having seen the document, reportedly signed in July 2000, four days before Germany beat SA by 12 votes to 11 for the right to host the 2006 World Cup finals.
Beckenbauer is already being investigated by Fifa’s ethics committee, which is looking into the controversial awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals to Russia and Qatar.
But “the Kaiser” is under increasing pressure to shed light on the 2006 World Cup scandal in Germany.
Germany’s Interior Minister, Thomas de Maiziere, said yesterday that he expected “those who can contribute to the cleaning up, to do so”.
The agency representing Beckenbauer refused to comment yesterday, but last month, the German legend admitted making a “mistake” in the bidding process.