Beckenbauer denies cash-for-votes allegations

FRANZ Beckenbauer, who led Germany's successful bid to host the 2006 World Cup, on Sunday denied cash-for-votes allegations in the latest scandal to rock football's governing body FIFA.

Magazine Der Spiegel shook both the German Football Association (DFB) and FIFA on Friday by alleging votes for the 2006 World Cup were bought.

"I have not sent anyone money to acquire votes for the awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany," said the 70-year-old Beckenbauer in a statement.

"And I'm sure that no other member of the bidding committee did either."

Germany won the right to host the 2006 World Cup by beating South Africa with 12 votes to 11 after New Zealand's Charles Dempsey abstained in the final ballot.

This is the first time Beckenbauer, who both led Germany's bid and was head of the organising committee, has responded to the allegations.

On Saturday, Wolfgang Niersbach, the president of the DFB, vigorously denied any corruption after Spiegel claimed the 2006 organising committee had a slush fund to buy votes.

The magazine claims the DFB borrowed 10.3 million Swiss francs in 2000 from the now-deceased former CEO of German sportswear giant Adidas, Robert Louis-Dreyfus in order to buy the votes of four Asian members of FIFA's 24-strong executive committee.

Spiegel claimed the DFB then transferred 6.7 million euros (the equivalent exchange rate for the borrowed Swiss francs at the time) to a FIFA account in 2005 to reimburse Louis-Dreyfus.

The DFB preempted Spiegel's claims by issuing its own statement admitting they had made that last payment to FIFA, but denying it had any connection to the 2006 World Cup.

"There was no slush fund," Niersbach insisted. "The World Cup was not bought."

Niersbach added that the internal investigation had not been completed but said: "I can definitively exclude that this payment was linked to the World Cup."

This is the latest body blow to hit world football's governing body ahead of the emergency meeting of FIFA's executive committee in Zurich on Tuesday.

FIFA has suspended president Sepp Blatter for 90 days due to suspicions a two million Swiss franc ($2 million, 1.8 million euros) payment he made to UEFA counterpart Michel Platini was not above board.

Alongside Blatter, Platini and FIFA's secretary general Jerome Valcke have also been suspended for the same period by the governing body's independent ethics committee.

Swiss investigators are also looking into the awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar in a bribery scandal which has seen 14 people arrested by American and Swiss authorities.

Seven former FIFA officials were arrested by Swiss authorities in May as the United States attempts to have them extradited to face charges of accepting bribes.

AFP