By Paul Nicholson
June 16 – Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer, a world cup legend having won the trophy as a player, a manager and then, as bid leader, winning the hosting rights for his country for the 2006 tournament, has said that he will now answer the questions of FIFA investigators.
Beckenbauer was handed a 90-day ban for failing to co-operate with the investigation into World Cup hosting for the 2018 and 2022 bids. He was a member of the FIFA executive committee at the time of the vote in 2010 but has since resigned from all football positions, though holds the position of Honorary President at Bayern Munich.
While the FIFA ban was largely pointless, it did prevent Beckenbauer attending any World Cup matches and he initially said that he had cancelled his trip to Brazil – he was planning to be there for the semi-finals of the tournament. He found out about his suspension from the press.
“It was the first time that FIFA did not know how to contact me by telephone,” said Beckenbauer. “Furthermore I always assumed that I did not have to answer the questions because I no longer hold an official function with FIFA. But that has now been cleared up.”
Beckenbauer says that he will answer the questions within the next two weeks and hopes that his suspension will be lifted
Beckenbauer’s management pointed out that at no point had he ruled out answering the questions.
“I have absolutely nothing to hide and I am clearly also of the opinion that there must be sanctions for those responsible when corruption is proved,” Beckenbauer told Bild magazine.
“I was ready to answer all pertinent questions, but they sent them to me in a legal English that I could not understand in such a complex case.
“So I politely asked that the interview be held in German and I was refused. So I said: ‘Never mind,'” Beckenbauer added.
Beckenbauer has maintained he had a right to keep his FIFA vote in 2010 secret but that for 2022 he had voted for Australia (mandated by the German FA), and that at the time he had expressed surprise at the Qatar win and had said that the tournament would be impossible in Summer and would need to switched to Winter.
Germans call for Zwaniger to step down
The German Football Federation (DFB) has demanded their former president Theo Zwanziger steps down from FIFA because they maintain he no longer represents the interests of German football in the sport’s world governing body.
Zwanziger is actually one of UEFA’s delegates to the FIFA executive committee and so, theoretically, should be representing European interests rather specific German interests.
The DFB says that Zwanziger has made “repeated public attacks against his successor as president Wolfgang Niersbach and the current DFB management”.
Zwanziger criticised Niersbach’s salary at the weekend. The DFB claimed who his statements were “intolerable” and “called into question and discredited the excellent work of the president”.
Bundesliga president Reinhardt Rauball joined in the criticism saying: “These public statements are totally unacceptable, moreover, during a World Cup, in which the players and the sport should be the focus.”
Zwanziger was DFB president from 2006 to 2012. His mandate on FIFA’s executive committee runs until May 2015.
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