Uli Hoeneß is to testify in the summer fairy tale trial before the Frankfurt/Main regional court.
Judge Eva-Marie Distler said at the start of the second day of the trial on Thursday that the honorary president of record champions Bayern Munich had been invited as a witness on April 15th. The reason for this are statements made by Hoeneß from 2020 and 2021. At that time, the now 72-year-old indicated in a TV interview and a podcast that he knew why the dubious millions in payments surrounding the 2006 World Cup in Germany occurred .
The statements of the three accused former top officials of the German Football Association (DFB) were expected on Thursday. The former presidents Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach as well as the long-standing general secretary Horst R. Schmidt are charged with “evading or aiding in the evasion of corporation tax, solidarity surcharge, trade tax and sales tax for the year 2006 in the amount of over 13.7 million euros in favor of the DFB”. burden placed.
Niersbach lawyer requests that the process be stopped
Niersbach, Zwanziger and Schmidt reject the allegations. The investigation into the opaque money flows surrounding the 2006 World Cup has been dragging on for several years. At the end of the first day of the trial, Niersbach and Schmidt’s lawyers requested that the proceedings be discontinued. If this happens, the public prosecutor’s office will probably want to take further legal action.
The public prosecutor’s office had previously shown itself open to an out-of-court settlement. Distler stated that she was “not opposed to an early end to the process,” but that the “right time” for it had not yet come. Therefore, 24 days of negotiations are still scheduled until October 28th.
The “Summer Fairy Tale Process”
The three defendants, Theo Zwanziger, Horst R. Schmidt and Wolfgang Niersbach, are accused of tax evasion in a particularly serious case. You had declared a payment of 6.7 million euros as a business expense in the DFB’s tax return for 2006. This would have resulted in a lower tax liability. However, the prosecution assumes that the reason for the payment (subsidy for a FIFA gala that never took place) was intended to conceal the true purpose. It does not recognize the profit-reducing expense as such and therefore assumes tax evasion.
The defendants protest their innocence.