The Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG) has filed an indictment against three former officials of the German football asscoaition (DFB) and a former FIFA official, alleging that they misled the Germany 2006 World Cup Organising Committee about the purpose of a €6.7 million payment. The OAG alleges that former DFB officials Rudolf Schmidt, Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach conspired with former FIFA General Secretary Urs Linsi to present the payment as intended for a gala event connected to the opening ceremony of the Germany 2006 FIFA World Cup, whereas its actual intention was to repay a €10 million loan borrowed by Franz Beckenbauer from former CEO of Adidas, Robert Louis-Dreyfus. All four defendants are also facing similar charges levied by the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor last year. 

The OAG said that in 2002, whilst DFB Vice President Beckenbauer was heading Germany’s World Cup bid, he accepted a €10 million loan from Louis-Dreyfus. ‘This sum was used to fund various payments made via a Swiss law firm to a Qatari company belonging to Mohammed Bin Hammam’, reads the OAG’s statement (PDF below).

Former President of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and member of the FIFA Executive Committee Bin Hammam initially denied receiving the payments, but later admitted that money was deposited in his account. A 2016 DFB Report (PDF below) named the ‘Qatari company’ to which Beckenbauer transferred the money as Kemco Scaffolding Co, and the legal firm involved in handling the payment as Gabriel & Müller.

The OAG said that it could not ascertain the exact purpose of the €10 million loan, as ‘a corresponding request for legal assistance made by the OAG to the Qatari authorities in September 2016 remained unanswered until today’. It added that according to Beckenbauer, ‘the payment was requested by Bin Hammam, respectively by the FIFA Finance Committee, in return for a discretionary grant of €250 million paid by FIFA to the [Germany 2006 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee]’. 

Because the DFB would not provide the money to pay Bin Hammam, the OAG said that Beckenbauer accepted the personal loan to make the payment. In May 2002, the Organising Committee was given an assurance that a €250 million FIFA grant would be paid.

The OAG’s indictment identifies the €6.7 million as the outstanding balance that Beckenbauer still had to repay to Louis-Dreyfus as of April 2005. It accuses Schmidt, Zwanziger and Niersbach of duping the DFB into repaying the €6.7 million at an 8 April 2005 meeting, by claiming that the payment to FIFA was in connection to the fictional gala event. ‘In fact, the accused had already agreed at the time of the meeting that Urs Linsi would arrange for FIFA to transfer the sum directly to Robert Louis-Dreyfus in order to repay the personal loan made to Franz Beckenbauer’, reads the OAG’s statement.

The DFB Report said that once the €6.7 million was paid by the DFB to FIFA, it was transferred to Louis-Dreyfus’ Swiss bank account the same day. Like the OAG, it could not certify the exact purpose of the payment. It concluded that there was no evidence that the DFB had bought votes in connection to its successful campaign to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup. However, it said that whether the payment was used to help secure a larger FIFA funding grant for the World Cup organising committee, or whether there was a further ‘underlying purpose’, should ‘remain open’.

Freshfields, which conducted the investigation for the DFB, said it encountered hurdles including missing electronic information, deleted emails, files that weren’t accessible and people who declined to talk with investigators, including former FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter. “Because of these restrictions, we cannot present a conclusive picture”, the law firm said at the time.

Germany won the right to host the 2006 World Cup in 2000, after securing 12 votes to South Africa’s 11. Bin Hammam was sanctioned with a life ban by FIFA in 2012 for paying national associations in connection to his 2011 FIFA Presidential election campaign and in connection to the 2010 voting process to appoint the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. FIFA sanctioned Beckenbauer with a warning and a fine in 2016, for failing to cooperate with its investigations into the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively.

The OAG also clarified that proceedings against Beckenbauer would continue separately, because his ill health may delay proceedings. ‘Beckenbauer is unable for health reasons to participate or to be questioned in the main hearing in the Federal Criminal Court’, reads the OAG’s statement.