German MP Özcan Mutlu said that Germany's football chief "must urgently appear before a parliament committee to answer allegations of slush fund payments to secure the 2006 World Cup, and to tackle a scandal that threatens to damage the sport in Germany," according to Karolos Grohmann of REUTERS. Mutlu said, "There are questions after questions that have remained unanswered and that is not contributing to the clearing up of what exactly happened with our 'Sommermaerchen' (summer fairy tale)." The allegations, besides shaking German football, "have fueled a deepening crisis" over the running of FIFA. Mutlu, a member of parliament's sports committee and long-standing critic of FIFA, said that German FA (DFB) President Wolfgang Niersbach "had not responded to an invitation to appear before the committee on Nov. 4." Mutlu: "My goal is that he comes and answers our questions. Full transparency. If he does not come, then the suspicions will only grow stronger and will damage the sport." The DFB refused to comment "when repeatedly contacted" on the invitation to the hearing. The DFB boss has been invited to respond to allegations from both media and his predecessor, Theo Zwanziger, that a slush fund containing €6.7M was used "to buy votes backing of Germany's 2006 World Cup bid" in '00 (REUTERS, 10/26). In Berlin, Deutsche Welle reported 2006 World Cup Organizing Committee President Franz Beckenbauer "again denied that the German bid used illicit funds to land the tournament." In a statement released on Monday by the management company that represents him, Beckenbauer asserted that "no votes were bought to win the right to host the 2006 World Cup." Instead, Beckenbauer appeared to back up a claim by Niersbach, who said last Thursday that a payment of 10M Swiss francs had been used to "unlock FIFA subsidies for organizing the tournament." Beckenbauer had previously denied that any votes were bought, but in Monday's statement, he "conceded that the organizing committee had made a mistake." He said, "In order to receive a financial subsidy from FIFA, it was agreed to accept a recommendation from FIFA's Finance Committee, which from today's perspective, should have been rejected" (DW, 10/26).
