The committee, chaired by Alan Sullivan, concluded Niersbach, a current FIFA executive committee member, failed to report findings about possible misconduct concerning the award of the 2006 World Cup to Germany, including potential breaches of the FIFA Code of Ethics (FCE).
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Niersbach, who was a vice president of the 2006 World Cup organizing committee in charge of media and marketing, described the punishment as “inappropriate and excessive”.
The ban means that Niersbach, who resigned as DFB president last November amid a scandal over the awarding of the right to host the 2006 World Cup to Germany, loses his seats on the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee.
Former German FA president Wolfgang Niersbach is banned for one year from all football-related activity following bribery allegations.
He said he was being investigated now for failing to inform FIFA’s ethics commission past year of the developments regarding the 2006 affair.
However despite the calls for a two-year ban, the Ethics Committee chose a lighter one-year sentence instead.
“This decision hits me very hard”, Niersbach told SID, an AFP subsidiary. “I will let my legal counsel advise me whether I should appeal against this decision”. “I have once again acknowledged and regretted my mistakes”.
FIFA’s ethics panel said Niersbach had breached rules relating to duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting and conflicts of interest.
The ethics committee suspension will force his immediate removal from posts he now holds on the FIFA Council and UEFA executive committee.
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The decision from Federation Internationale de Football Association came after an independent report into allegations of corruption with the European nation’s successful attempt to stage the tournament, commissioned by the DFB and conducted by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
