By Andrew Warshaw
March 7 – Franz Beckenbauer has sought to distance himself from the increasingly mysterious SFr10 million payment made during Germany’s 2006 World Cup bid campaign and which ended up in an account controlled by Qatar’s banned former FIFA powerbroker Mohammed bin Hammam.
Pressure is growing on Germany’s most iconic footballing figurehead and organiser of the 2006 tournament after a 380-page German FA (DFB)-commissioned report, released on Friday, showed that the sum was paid in 2002 to a firm whose sole owner at the time was Bin Hammam, former president of the Asian Football Confederation who was banned from all football-related activity in December 2012.
The affair was triggered by allegations Germany bought the World Cup using a secret slush fund. The DFB claims a payment to FIFA in 2005 was the return of a loan via FIFA from former Adidas chief Robert Louis-Dreyfus. Der Spiegel magazine, which broke the story, said was in fact repayment of a loan used to buy votes ahead the election in 2000 election for the 2006 tournament which Germany won by a solitary vote over South Africa.
The Freshfield report said there was no proof votes were bought but couldn’t rule it out since evidence may have been mislaid or destroyed.
Beckenbauer told Bild newspaper’s Sunday edition: “We did not buy votes. It (payment) was about a provision of security. In order to get a financial contribution from FIFA. Otherwise there would not be a World Cup in Germany.”
Beckenbauer said he left matters such as this to his late advisor Robert Schwan. “Robert took care of everything. From changing the light bulbs to the important contracts. I only found out on Wednesday that money had gone to Qatar.”
“In hindsight I may have made mistakes. But afterwards you are always smarter,” Beckenbauer said. “But the World Cup was not bought.”
Freshfields said the payment from the DFB had indeed been transferred to FIFA in 2005 but was not intended for the opening ceremony gala as was indicated by the organising committee. Interim DFB president Rainer Koch says there are still several unanswered questions. “I still don’t understand why it had to go through FIFA,” he said.
Wolfgang Niersbach, who was a member of the 2006 organising committee and recently stepped down as DFB president, said in a statement: “Although I have not yet had the chance to read the entire report… I am strengthened in my conviction that no votes were bought for the World Cup.”
FIFA, which is conducting its own internal investigation into the award of the 2006 World Cup, released a statement in which it promised to “review the report carefully and factor the findings into its ongoing internal investigation of this matter”.
“FIFA’s investigation has been hampered by the fact that key witnesses were not willing to answer questions or provide documents,” it added.
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