Because of a TV appearance four years ago, Uli Hoeneß has now been summoned as a witness and is expected to testify in court. It’s about a million-dollar payment.
Bavaria’s honorary president Uli Hoeneß is scheduled to be heard in the summer fairy tale trial in April. Judge Eva-Maria Distler announced on the second day of the trial at the regional court in Frankfurt/Main that Hoeneß would be called as a witness on April 15th.
The 72-year-old Hoeneß had hinted in the Sport1 “double pass” in 2020 and in the podcast “11Leben” in 2021 that he knew more about the million-dollar payment surrounding the 2006 World Cup. He was “very sure that the money was not used to sell votes,” said Hoeneß in “Dopa”. When asked, it continued: “I think I’m the wrong person to explain this to you.”
Specifically, it concerns a payment of 6.7 million euros that the German Football Association transferred to FIFA in April 2005. The public prosecutor’s office accuses the defendants Theo Zwanziger, Wolfgang Niersbach and Horst R. Schmidt of having improperly included this sum in the association’s tax return for 2006 as a business expense in determining profits.
“An absolute nightmare”
April 15th (Monday), on which Hoeneß is now scheduled to testify as a witness, is the fourth day of the trial. Before that – after a three-week break – negotiations will take place on March 28th.
Former DFB top officials Zwanziger, Niersbach and Schmidt have to answer in a particularly serious case on suspicion of tax evasion. Niersbach and Schmidt, whose lawyers requested that the trial be stopped on Monday, defended themselves clearly on Thursday.
Schmidt said he “firmly rejects” the accusation. For him, the accusations are “baseless and defamatory.” Niersbach said: “I have been confronted with suspicions and untruths for eight years. For me it is an absolute nightmare.” In recent years he has been forced to reject offers for new jobs.