Tax fraud charges filed against German ex-football officials

BERLIN: Three former top officials of Germany’s football federation said Wednesday they have been charged with tax fraud in relation to a scandal over alleged vote-buying to host the 2006 World Cup.

Former German Football Association (DFB) presidents Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach, as well as ex DFB general secretary Horst R. Schmidt, confirmed to AFP’s sports subsidiary SID charges filed against them by German prosecutors. But they contested the accusation.

“It will be shown that the charges against me are completely unfounded,” Niersbach told SID.Separately, Zwanziger said that “at no point did I have any reason to make the DFB richer through tax evasion.”

Prosecutors had issued the indictment on May 15, accusing the former officials of having filed a wrongful tax declaration in 2006, the year Germany hosted the international football championship.

The wider scandal first came to light in October 2015, when news magazine Der Spiegel accused Germany of having used a secret slush fund to buy votes in support of its bid to host the 2006 World Cup.The fund reportedly held 10 million Swiss francs, or 6.7 million euros according to the exchange rate at the time.