German FA (DFB) President Wolfgang Niersbach said that "he could not fully explain" a payment of €6.7M ($7.5M) to FIFA a year before Germany hosted the 2006 World Cup, according to Karolos Grohmann of REUTERS. Niersbach again "denied a report by magazine Der Spiegel last week that a slush fund had been set up to enable the German organising committee to pay bribes to FIFA officials for awarding it the right to stage the tournament." But he acknowledged that "there were unanswered questions surrounding the payment, which the committee made to FIFA in 2005." The DFB, which Niersbach heads, has said it was for a cultural program during the tournament. Niersbach: "I don't want it to look like I am dodging questions ... but today I cannot give you a complete explanation. There are open questions and that is why we asked the legal firm (last week) to investigate it. There are question marks regarding this process that I have as well." Der Spiegel reported that Germany's 2006 bid
committee "tapped into a secret fund to buy votes, alleging it had been
set up with money" from late adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus. Niersbach said, "The main issue is what I underlined last week. That everything was legal with the awarding of the 2006 World Cup. No slush funds and no bought votes. This allegation ... is not true." He said that "the money was demanded by FIFA's finance committee in order to pay out a contribution" of €170M toward the Germans' organizational budget, as the German organizing committee was at the time "only just starting to generate revenues." Asked why FIFA needed €6.7M to pay out a much higher sum, Niersbach shrugged his shoulders and said, "I do not know that" (REUTERS, 10/22).
