Bach wants Germany 2006 FIFA World Cup bid probed

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has called for corruption allegations surrounding Germany’s successful bid for the 2006 FIFA World Cup to be investigated quickly.

It follows allegations that an undisclosed loan of almost €6.7 million (£4.9 million/$7.7 million) was made by former Adidas’ French chief executive Robert Louis-Dreyfus to the country’s Bid Committee that never appeared on accounts.

According to reports in respected magazine Der Spiegel, the money was used in a slush fund to bribe four Asian members of FIFA’s Executive Committee, including South Korea’s Chung Mong-joon, banned earlier this month by the world governing body’s Ethics Committee for six years after being found guilty of offences related to conduct, confidentiality, disclosure and collaboration.

FIFA, who had appointed Sepp Blatter as President two years earlier, were later involved in covering up the illegal payment when Louis-Dreyfus demanded it be repaid, it is alleged.

A probe has been opened by the German Football Association (DFA), but the body claim there are “no indications of irregularities while there was equally no indication whatsoever that votes of delegates were bought”.

They are also investigating a similar payment of €6.7 million to FIFA for a Cultural Programme in 2005 and whether it was used as intended.

Chung was the only one of the three Asian members who remain alive identified by Spiegel.

Chung was quoted as telling the magazine that “the questions were unworthy of a response”.

Bach, an IOC member at the time, who became German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) head in 2006 before becoming IOC President in 2013, was a member of a Germany 2006 Supervisory Board.

“Thomas Bach, in the interests of football, believes that a prompt and full investigation of allegations [should be] carried out,” said IOC spokesman in German speaking countries, Christian Klaue.

Bach claims the Board were unaware of any wrongdoing.

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Germany, whose bid was led by former World Cup winning captain and coach Franz Beckenbauer, was awarded hosting rights for the 2006 World Cup by the slenderist of 12-11 margins over South Africa.

This came after New Zealand’s Charlie Dempsey abstained from the decisive second round of voting blaming “intolerable pressure” on the eve of the vote.

Had Dempsey voted as instructed to do so for South Africa, the vote would have resulted with a 12–12 tie, and FIFA president Blatter, who reportedly favoured the South African bid, would have had to cast the deciding vote.

There have long been lingering suggestions of wrongdoing hanging over the process.

Several deals were allegedly brokered by the German Government in the lead-up to the vote in 2000 vote, including one when DaimlerChrysler invested in South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai, a company founded by Chung’s father and which was suffering financial problems at the time.

“I never gave money to anyone in order to acquire votes so that Germany is awarded the 2006 World Cup,” Beckenbauer, a former FIFA Executive Committee member investigated earlier this year for alleged wrongdoing during the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process, said in a statement.

“And I am certain that no other member of the Bid Committee did something like that.”

Current DFB President and Germany 2006 vice-president Wolfgang Niersbach also rejected the allegations and is vowing to take legal action.

Louis-Dreyfus, the figure at the centre of the allegations, died in 2009 following a long battle with leukemia.

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