By Andrew Warshaw
April 3 – Yet another potentially significant twist has emerged in the 2006 World Cup scandal that continues to heap suspicion on those who organised the tournament in Germany.
According to unconfirmed German media reports, Swiss investigators have uncovered previously unknown payments allegedly made to bid executive Fedor Radmann.
Radmann, a close associate of under-fire 2006 bid leader Franz Beckenbauer, Germany’s most famous footballing icon, is said to have received €1.5 million, possibly for marketing rights, and is claimed to have handed half of that amount to Beckenbauer “out of gratitude”
The funds apparently came from a company owned by the late Adidas boss Robert Louis-Dreyfus, the same figurehead who reportedly provided the money for a secret 6.7m euro slush fund allegedly used to buy votes.
A Swiss criminal investigation into corruption allegations over the awarding of the 2006 tournament is still ongoing and Beckenbauer was recently questioned by Swiss prosecutors. German reports now say Radmann was interviewed at the same time.
The alleged slush fund has never been proven but World Cup organisers have been under scrutiny ever since a 360-page report commissioned by the DFB attempted to explain a trail of suspect payments.
Last year, the report identified a series of payments totalling CHF10 million from Beckenbauer to an account controlled by Qatar’s then Asian football chief Mohamed Bin Hammam, who was banned a decade later.
The payments were made in 2002, some two years after Germany was awarded the 2006 tournament and while the Freshfield report said there was no proof votes were bought, it couldn’t rule it out since evidence may have been mislaid or destroyed.
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