Online Reporter
The German soccer federation has been convicted of tax evasion related to its successful 2006 World Cup bid.
It brought an end of sorts yesterday to a 10-year process prompted by allegations that Germany used a slush fund to buy votes from FIFA executive committee members to be certain of hosting the tournament.
A regional court in Frankfurt fined the federation, known by its German acronym DFB, 110 000 euros (US$128 000) at the culmination of a nearly 16-month trial at the end of the investigation process.
Prosecutors had been pushing for a larger fine after accusing the DFB of failing to pay approximately 2.7 million euros (now US$3.1 million) in taxes related to its payment of 6.7 million euros (US$7.8 million) to FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, in April 2005.
That payment settled a loan that Germany great Franz Beckenbauer, the head of the World Cup organising committee, had accepted three years earlier from Robert Louis-Dreyfus, a former Adidas executive and then part-owner of the Infront marketing agency.
The money was channeled through a Swiss law firm to a Qatari company belonging to Mohammed Bin Hammam, then a member of FIFA’s Executive Committee.
The exact purpose of the money was never determined. – AP/Sports Reporter
