By Andrew Warshaw
November 12 – Germany’s ‘s joint interim FA chief Reinhard Rauball has warned of a long road ahead to pull the country out of its off-the-field political crisis.
Rauball and Rainer Koch have been tasked with running the DFB after Wolfgang Niersbach resigned as president on Monday over the World Cup 2006 slush fund scandal that shows little sign of abating.
“The DFB is currently going through a highly problematic situation. So for the good of our sport, together we need to get to work, the Bundesliga as well as the amateurs,” Rauball, who also heads the German Football League (DFL), told Bild. “This will take much more time than is expected.”
Der Spiegel magazine alleged last month a €6.7 million payment to FIFA was a return on a loan from then Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus to buy votes in favour of Germany’s 2006 World Cup bid.
Niersbach, who was one of the vice-presidents of the 2006 organising committee, has denied the claims but agreed to fall on his sword after it was revealed he is under investigation for possible tax evasion in relation to the payment.
Niersbach has accepted “political responsibility” but is remaining as a member of the FIFA and UEFA excos. He said last month, however, that he did not know why the payment to FIFA was made in 2005 and had ordered an internal investigation.
The pressure is now on Franz Beckenbauer, who led the 2006 World Cup organising committee, to reveal more about what he knows. Germany’s most famous footballing figure has also rejected allegations of any votes-for-cash deal but suspicion has grown with the DFB confirming that a contract between him and former FIFA vice-president and CONCACAF chief Jack Warner, banned from football for life since September, was signed four days before the World Cup vote in July 2000.
The draft contract offered a series of services, including friendly matches and coaching but no financial offer, according to the DFB who made the point that the contract was never fulfilled.
Beckenbauer, a former FIFA exco member, has not commented on any dealings with Warner but his reputation is in danger of being tarnished if that continues. Warner, who sat on the FIFA exco for 28 years, is among the 14 football officials and sports marketing executives indicted in the United States on bribery, money laundering and wire fraud charges involving more than $150 million.
Warner told SPORT1 in Germany that no agreement with Beckenbauer took place. “I had no agreement with anyone from Germany’s organising committee for the 2006 World Cup,” he said in an emailed reply to being questioned over the accusations.
“I’ve said a thousand times that I do not talk about my time at the FIFA. I will not participate in the international media circus that humiliated and slandered me.”
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