“We have initiated a monitoring process”, Nadja Niesen, spokeswoman for the Frankfurt state prosecutor’s office, said.
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Bid committee chief Franz Beckenbauer says he never had money given to anyone to buy votes. The DFB states explicitly again that neither the DFB president nor other members of the organising committee were involved in such operations or had knowledge about them.
President Niersbach addressed the allegations made in the latest edition of the German newsmagazine “Spiegel”, in a statement to journalists at the press conference at the official opening of the museum in Dortmund.
On top of the Swiss investigation into the attribution of the 2018 World Cup to Russian Federation and the 2022 tournament to Qatar, and the surrounding bribery scandal that has seen 14 people arrested by American and Swiss authorities, now Spiegel have claimed that votes for the 2006 edition played in Germany were bought.
“There were no slush funds, no votes were bought”, Niersbach said at the start of the media event.
According to the weekly Der Spiegel, Germany Football Federation hosted the 2006 FIFA World Cup voting bribes paid to officials in the executive committee organized to do. The monitoring process will determine whether a formal investigation is necessary.
Bach, who was on the supervisory board of the 2006 World Cup organizing committee, said in a statement the board had “no indications at all of any irregularities of this kind” at the time.
Der Spiegel said that among those aware of the slush fund had been Beckenbauer, who was the head of the committee, as well as Wolfgang Niersbach, the current president of the German Football Association (DFB) who was a vice president of the organizing committee, citing internal documents from the DFB.
“To clear it up we have the control committee investigating internally and the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer externally”, Niersbach said.
FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, on Friday said that it would investigate “serious allegations” that Germany secured the 20016 World Cup with bribes.
Spiegel said Louis-Dreyfus asked for the money back a year-and-a-half before the tournament began.
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The 2010 World Cup has not been spared suspicion due to a $10 million payment made by South Africa to then Federation Internationale de Football Association vice-president Jack Warner, who is now fighting extradition from his Trinidad and Tobago homeland to the USA to answer corruption charges.
