The trial of three senior officials of the German Football Federation (DFB), accused of tax fraud in connection with the 2006 World Cup in Germany, opened Monday before the Frankfurt court.
The former presidents of the German Football Federation (DFB), Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach, as well as the general secretary Horst Schmidt, are all three accused of having evaded the tax authorities, while they were part of the committee of organization of the 2006 Men’s Football World Cup held in Germany.
The prosecution accuses them of “fraud or complicity in fraud” with various taxes “for the benefit of the German Football Federation”. In total, it would be more than 13.7 million euros in taxes that would not have been paid for 2006. According to the indictment, a committee responsible for the organization would have received in 2005 around 6 .7 million euros. This sum was to cover the expenses of a so-called gala for the 2006 World Cup, according to the accounts of the German Football Federation. However, this gala never took place and this amount could therefore not be tax deductible.
The money was, however, used, according to the prosecution, to repay a loan that German football legend Franz Beckenbauer, who died last month and who then headed the organizing committee, had taken out privately from the late Robert Louis -Dreyfus, boss of Adidas. “The three defendants knew that the tax returns were incorrect,” said the prosecution. Former FIFA Secretary General Urs Linsi, a Swiss national, was also accused of complicity in tax evasion, but the charges against him were dropped in exchange for payment of a fine. He should just be called as a witness at trial.
The Frankfurt trial concerns only the tax aspect of a broader case on suspicion of corruption during the awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany. Swiss justice, where the International Football Federation (FIFA) is headquartered , was in charge of the other part of the case. However, in Switzerland, the trial of the three officials for fraud (where they were accused of having hidden the true destination of the transfer of 6.7 million euros from the DFB) opened in March 2020 but was repeated several times interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, before the courts noted the limitation period in May 2021 without having decided the case on the merits.
On Monday, lawyers for Niersbach, Zwanziger and Schmidt criticized the reopening of proceedings in Germany. One of them even asked for the trial to be stopped on the grounds that corruption charges had been dropped in Switzerland.
