Zwanziger files complaint over Swiss probe

BERLIN: Former German Football Association president Theo Zwanziger has filed a complaint against the Swiss attorney general’s office for launching a money-laundering probe against him, his lawyer said Friday.

The Swiss prosecutors opened their probe last year into fraud and money-laundering allegations against four members of Germany’s 2006 World Cup organising committee, including Zwanziger.

But the 71-year-old Zwanziger has now fired back with his criminal complaint filed in Koblenz, Germany, which argues Swiss authorities don’t have jurisdiction over the case.

“It is true that we have filed a criminal complaint against the responsible Swiss federal prosecutors at the public prosecutor’s office in Koblenz,” his lawyer Hans-Joerg Metz told AFP’s German sports subsidiary SID.

According to Metz, the Swiss criminal code does not justify an investigation against Zwanziger.

“We clearly question the jurisdiction of the Swiss federal prosecutor” in the case, said the lawyer.

The case first came to light in October 2015, when German news magazine Der Spiegel accused Germany of using a secret slush fund holding 10 million Swiss francs (worth 6.7 million euros at the time), to buy votes in support of its bid to host the 2006 World Cup.

Swiss prosecutors said this week the investigation against organising committee members, also including German football legend Franz Beckenbauer, had been broadened to also include former FIFA boss Urs Linsi.