Football World Cup 2006: Proceedings in the summer fairy tale affair

Status: 10/31/2022 1:26 p.m

The district court in Frankfurt am Main has dropped the proceedings in the summer fairy tale affair surrounding the 2006 World Cup against former DFB officials Horst R. Schmidt, Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach.

This was confirmed by the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office. A process in Switzerland had already failed in the previous year.

In Switzerland, the former top officials of the German Football Association and the world association FIFA had received compensation. The four originally accused received a total of around 705,000 Swiss francs (640,000 euros). The sum was far below the demands.

“Unremovable Procedural Obstacle”

The Swiss federal prosecutor’s office had tried to burden the ex-officials with legal costs. She argued, among other things, that the four complicated the case before it was dropped in April 2020 due to the statute of limitations. The former DFB presidents Niersbach (71) and Theo Zwanziger (77), the former DFB general secretary Horst R. Schmidt (80) and the former FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi (73) were accused. The Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office had also investigated the quartet in the same factual context.

The district court in Frankfurt announced: “In the requested criminal case, no information is currently being given.” Because “an unresolvable procedural obstacle”, according to Schmidt’s defense, the proceedings were discontinued. Double punishment by a court in Switzerland and in Germany is not possible.

Internal processing is still ongoing

The DFB is still working on the summer fairy tale affair internally – a sensational, expensive report from the Freshfields law firm had not yielded any earth-shattering findings. FIFA announced in February 2021 that it was no longer pursuing the ethics proceedings against Zwanziger, Beckenbauer and Schmidt due to the statute of limitations. Zwanziger, Schmidt and Linsi were accused of fraud in Switzerland, and Niersbach of aiding and abetting fraud. A procedure against World Cup organization chief Franz Beckenbauer (77) had been separated because of his health.

A gala that never happened

In essence, it was a payment of 6.7 million euros from the DFB via the world association FIFA to the businessman Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who has since died. The money was declared as a contribution to a gala for the 2006 World Cup, which never took place. In 2002, Beckenbauer had received a loan from Louis-Dreyfus for the same amount, which ended up in the accounts of former FIFA finance official Mohamed bin Hammam. To this day it is still unclear why.

Schmidt’s lawyer informed that the Frankfurt court “correctly determined” would have, “that by the dismissal decision of the Swiss Federal Criminal Court of May 20, 2021” a “Penal action according to Art. 54 SDÜ has occurred, since both criminal proceedings related to the same facts”. The costs of the procedure are now borne by the state treasury. Now find them “Criminal prosecution of Mr. Horst R. Schmidt at least a temporary end”it was said.

The investigations and the parallel proceedings in Germany and Switzerland would have “a great burden for our client over the past seven years”. Schmidt’s defenders laid “great importance to the statement that Mr. Schmidt has never made himself liable to prosecution and under no circumstances” Has. “So it stays the same: The summer fairy tale of 2006 was the best World Cup ever”it was said.

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