Germany won FIFA’s 2000 selection vote for the 2006 World Cup, beating out South African by one vote.
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Prosecutors are probing DFB’s current president as well as its leader in 2006, for aggravated tax evasion, prosecutors’ spokeswoman Nadja Niesen said in an emailed statement, without using their names.
Documents and hard drives were seized from the DFB’s headquarters in Frankfurt and the private residences of three top officials were also searched, according to reports in the German media.
“They today have been enforced by 50 officers of Frankfurt’s tax investigation as well as the prosecution for economic offences”.
Picture shows the Germany’s DFB football association headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany November 3, 2015.
The DFB returned the same sum to Louis-Dreyfus via Federation Internationale de Football Association in 2005, the magazine said.
Prosecutors said they were launching a tax probe but could not pursue accusations of direct corruption because the statute of limitations had expired. Repeatedly contacted by Reuters, it declined to comment on Tuesday’s tax raid. “The DFB itself is not among those accused”. “There were no slush funds, and no vote buying”, Niersbach said. Zwanziger welcomed the raids and said he wanted the truth to come out.
But Zwanziger has accused Niersbach of hiding the truth, saying it was “clear that there was a slush fund in the German World Cup bidding process”.
“We are searching for incriminating material that backs up tax evasion suspicions”, an investigator told Bild newspaper.
Niersbach, Zwanziger and Schmidt all belonged to the organizing committee for the 2006 World Cup (WMOK) which was managed by legendary player and manager Franz Beckenbauer.
“No votes were bought in order to win the right to stage the 2006 World Cup”.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter and Secretary General Jérôme Valcke were among a group of officials suspended from football’s governing body earlier in October.
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Zwanziger claims it was Netzer who first told him that the votes of four Asian representatives on the Federation Internationale de Football Association executive committee were bought, which Netzer denies.
