Foreign
Minister Steinmeier has demanded an immediate inquiry into new claims Germany
won the 2006 soccer World Cup by buying votes. One politician has asked for an
external probe - not trusting soccer to police itself.
Deutsche Welle, 17 Oct 2015
Germany's
top diplomat Frank-Walter Steinmeier joined a chorus of politicians on Saturday
clamoring for a swift and thorough investigation into allegations the German
Football Association (DFB) won the opportunity to host the 2006 soccer world
cup through bribery.
"That
is in the interest of sport and football. But it is also in our common interest
that nothing remains from it," Steinmeier said while on a visit to Tehran.
Saturday's
edition of "Der Spiegel" magazine covers claims that the German bid committee had a slush fund for vote-buying, funded by Adidas CEO Robert
Louis-Dreyfus. The magazine claims that the money was used to sway four
executives from the Asian branch of FIFA, soccer's international governing
body.
Call for
external probe
Late on
Friday, FIFA said it would investigate the "very serious
allegations."
An
investigation is not enough, however, for Dagmar Freitag, who heads the sports
commission in the German parliament. Freitag. She doesn't trust soccer to
reform itself, criticized the internal probe led by the DFB and called for
outside experts to look into the claims.
"My
personal opinion is that internal investigations by the DFB are not the measure
of all things ... And I believe that the prosecution office could also be
interested in these things," said Freitag.
The DFB
said it "categorically rejects the baseless allegations ," with the
caveat that a payment of 6.7 million euros (7.6 million dollars) it received
from FIFA "may not have been used for its intended purpose."
es/tj (dpa, SID)
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