Ahead of the verdict on Wednesday, the prosecution confirmed the accusation of tax evasion against the German Football Federation (DFB) in its plea and demanded the imposition of a fine of €270,000.
Senior public prosecutor Jesco Kümmel sharply criticized the DFB on Monday, saying that it had "not covered itself in glory" in its handling of the affair surrounding the 2006 World Cup.
Kümmel also accused the DFB of making it difficult for investigators to access important files.
"Some documents were only handed over to us late or after repeated insistence," he said. One file was only handed to investigators after they obtained search warrant.
DFB lawyer Jan-Olaf Leisner described the accusations as "nonsense" and called for the federation to be acquitted.
"We believe there was no tax evasion. There was no damage to the tax authorities, but rather an interest advantage. The DFB alone has suffered the damage," he said.
He added that DFB was "not treated equally" in the proceedings
Prosecutors believe the federation paid world football's governing body FIFA €6.7 million in April 2005 as part of a complicated string of payments.
It began with a loan to the German federation from late businessman Robert Louis-Dreyfus to effectively buy the hosting rights to the 2006 World Cup through an alleged bribe to then Qatari FIFA executive committee member Mohamed bin Hammam.
FIFA later passed the money back to Louis-Dreyfus and the DFB billed it as being for a gala event – which never took place.
Originally, former DFB top officials Theo Zwanziger, Wolfgang Niersbach and Horst R Schmidt were also defendants in the case along with the DFB as an entity. But they all paid sums to charity to have their cases dropped due to the complex nature of who knew what and when.
The trio had consistently denied tax evasion, the only charge that German prosecutors believed they could bring in the 2006 affair.
- German Football Federation
- Fine
- Tax evasion
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
