German prosecutor to look into 2006 World Cup allegations

BERLIN (Reuters) – Frankfurt’s state prosecutor will look into bribery allegations concerning the 2006 soccer World Cup after a magazine report suggested a slush fund had been used to buy votes for the German bid in 2000, an official said on Monday.

Der Spiegel magazine reported on Friday that Germany’s bid committee had tapped into a slush fund of 6.7 million euros to buy votes at world soccer’s governing body FIFA.

“We have initiated a monitoring process,” Nadja Niesen, spokeswoman for the Frankfurt state prosecutor’s office, said. The monitoring process will determine whether a formal investigation is necessary.

Der Spiegel reported the slush fund had been set up with 6.7 million euros loaned by the late Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus for Germany’s World Cup bid committee to pay bribes to FIFA officials in order to help land the tournament for Germany.

It said, citing internal German Football Association documents, among those aware of the slush fund had been Franz Beckenbauer, head of the 2006 organising committee, and Wolfgang Niersbach, the current president of the German Football Association (DFB), who was a vice president of the committee.

Niersbach, Beckenbauer and the DFB have vehemently rejected the allegations as ‘groundless’ and have said the magazine was providing no evidence to back up its claims.

The DFB said on Friday its own investigation had found no wrongdoing in the process of being awarded the 2006 World Cup, but said it was investigating a payment of 6.7 million euros ($7.6 million) from the committee to FIFA for a cultural programme and whether it was used as intended.

FIFA was plunged into the biggest crisis of its 111-year history in May, when 14 soccer officials and sports marketing executives were indicted in the United States on bribery, money laundering and wire fraud charges involving more than $150 million in payments.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Janet Lawrence)