By Andrew Warshaw
March 31 – The man poised to take over the running of German football has pledged to clean up his corruption-tainted federation after Franz Beckenbauer, the country’s most iconic sporting figurehead, found himself embroiled in an official FIFA inquiry into the hosting of the 2006 World Cup.
Earlier this month, FIFA’s ethics committee announced it was investigating Beckenbauer, who headed Germany’s 2006 bid and organising team, and five other senior officials over their roles in a possible vote-buying scandal.
The gravity of the decision to open “formal proceedings” against Beckenbauer and others among his team – notably Wolfgang Niersbach who was vice-president of the organising committee and still holds senior office as an executive committee member of both FIFA and UEFA despite having resigned as president of his federation – should not be underestimated.
Ethics prosecutors, acting amid rising suspicion of wrongdoing linked to the winning of hosting rights, said that in the case of Beckenbauer and three of the others, investigators would be looking into “possible undue payments and contracts to gain an advantage in the 2006 World Cup host selection and the associated funding.”
The investigation not only undermines a federation long flagged up as being an example to the rest of the world in terms of good governance, one which has been quick in the past to condemn corruption elsewhere, but also places Beckenbauer right at the heart of alleged wrongdoing.
The entire affair was prompted by a €6.7 million payment alleged to have been a secret slush fund to buy votes but which German authorities insist was a return of a loan from former Adidas owner Louis-Dreyfus. Germany ended up winning the ballot for 2006 hosting by a single vote over South Africa.
Reinhard Grindel (pictured), treasurer of the German FA (DFB) and the only candidate to become its president at elections on April 15, refuses to admit bribes were paid but has vowed to restore German football’s battered reputation.
“We will be the first federation to set up its own ethics committee to make sure nothing like this crisis happens again and have total transparency,” he told Insideworldfootball. “The only thing I can do is look forward and rebuild trust.”
Now retired, Beckenbauer moved into football administration following his stellar playing career, becoming a prominent member of the FIFA executive committee. He recently stepped down as a TV football analyst with Sky Deutschland following publication of a DFB-commissioned report from law firm Freshfields which cast fresh doubt on Germany’s winning 2006 bid.
The 360-page report found no evidence of vote-rigging but could not rule it out either and placed Beckenbauer in an uncomfortable position.
The Freshfields report confirmed that the payment in question ended up in an account controlled by Qatar’s banned former FIFA powerbroker Mohammed bin Hammam, former president of the Asian Football Confederation, and was not intended for the World Cup opening ceremony gala as had been indicated by the organising committee.
Beckenbauer, fined last month in a separate case for refusing to co-operate with a FIFA ethics investigation into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests, has vehemently denied any involvement in 2006 vote-buying but has admitted: “In hindsight I may have made mistakes.”
Grindel is refusing to cast aspertions on any of those being investigated but is clearly unhappy at seeing the image of his federation take such a battering.
“We have to be fair and wait for the outcome of the ethics inquiry but we knew there was something wrong regarding the €6.7 million payment,” he said. “We do not know what bin Hammam did with this money. Franz Beckenbauer is right when he says mistakes were made.”
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