Fresh allegations surface about 2006 World Cup bidding
Fresh allegations that bribes were paid to help Germany secure the 2006 World Cup have surfaced with claims that a FIFA member from New Zealand was paid 250,000 US dollars on the eve of the vote.
Theo Zwanziger, the former head of the German FA, claims a Swiss court document bears out his belief that the late Charles Dempsey was paid off – Dempsey had been mandated to vote for South Africa but abstained and Germany won the vote 12-11.
The court document is from the trial of executives from FIFA’s former marketing partners ISL. It was published in 2012 and Zwanziger has made public his own copy from that year where he wrote “Dempsey!” next to a payment to an anonymous recipient referred to as E16 – made on July 5, 2000, the eve of the vote.
What is not in dispute is that Dempsey left the vote in Zurich early and returned to New Zealand. He was awarded FIFA’s order of merit in 2004, and died in 2008 aged 87.
Zwanziger’s claims are the latest allegations in a scandal which has rocked German football.
Former World Cup bid leader Franz Beckenbauer has been forced to deny allegations by German news weekly der Spiegel that a payment of €6.7m to FIFA in 2005 was connected to a slush fund used to secure the 2006 World Cup.
Beckenbauer, 70, said in a statement the bid committee had made “a mistake” over the money but that “no votes were bought”.
He and German FA (DFB) president Wolfgang Niersbach, who is accused of knowing about the fund and the payments, say the money was paid in order to secure further FIFA funding.
The DFB has launched an internal investigation into what happened to the money.
