Former Fifa president Sepp Blatter has told a German court that the world governing body only provided a bank service in connection with dubious payments around the 2006 World Cup.
The 2006 World Cup was controversially awarded to Germany.
This came after Charles Demspey, the then president of the Oceania Football Confederation and then member of the Fifa executive committee, in 2000, did not vote for the 2006 Fifa World Cup hosts.
Due to the decision, Germany defeated South Africa by a vote of 12 to 11, resulting in Africa’s most industrialised economy missing out on the opportunity to host the 2006 tournament.
However, South Africa eventually won the rights to host the 2010 Fifa World Cup, which became a phenomenal success.
Bank transaction
Speaking of “a service”, Blatter this week told the Frankfurt court via a video link as a witness from his Swiss home country that: “We did a banking transaction and didn’t ask why. We only played bank.”
Blatter (89), who presided over Fifa between 1998 and 2016, was referring to the Sf10-million (R203-million) and €6.7-million (R129-million) which are at the centre of the trial on charges of tax evasion against the German Football Federation (DFB).
The €6.7-million payment was declared as part of a planned World Cup gala event that was scrapped for financial reasons in early 2006, a view Blatter shared.
The DFB put the sum down as operating expenses in 2006, which led to the trial because the public prosecutor’s office has named this inadmissible.
Prosecutors say that the DFB evaded taxes totalling more than €13-million.
Former DFB president Theo Zwanziger, the only remaining defendant in the proceedings, strictly rejects this accusation.
Money landed on Bin Hammam’s account
The DFB payment was made in 2005 to Fifa, which directed it on to account of French businessman Robert Louis-Dreyfus.
Louis-Dreyfus had sent a loan of Sf10-million to 2006 World Cup organizer Franz Beckenbauer.
The sum then arrived in an account of now disgraced Fifa top official Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar — for reasons not known.
Beckenbauer’s longtime confidant Fedor Radman told the court last week that the sum had been a security for a Sf250-million grant from Fifa to the German World Cup.
Blatter spoke of “a loan” on Thursday. – dpa and Sunday World
