FIFA investigating Beckenbauer and Villar
FIFA has confirmed that Germany great Franz Beckenbauer and senior vice president Angel Maria Villar have been investigated for wrongdoing and their cases have been passed to the adjudicatory chamber for a verdict by the ethics judge.
Details of the case were not provided at the time of the statement.
Although both Beckenbauer and Villar have previously been identified as targets of an investigation, the announcement on Wednesday from FIFA’s ethics committee is the first public confirmation of their names.
Beckenbauer, 70, is a former World Cup winner with West Germany both as a player in 1974 and a coach in 1990, and a two-time winner of the Ballon d’Or.
The public disclosure of Villar’s name is potentially embarrassing for UEFA, given that the Spanish federation president headed meetings last week of European football’s governing body while Michel Platini is suspended.
Renowned German weekly Der Spiegel reported on Friday that ahead of the vote for the host country of the 2006 World Cup in 2000, a slush fund of 10.3 million Swiss francs (about $6m at that time) — with a financial injection from former Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus — was set up to buy the votes of Asian representatives on FIFA’s executive committee.
Bayern Munich’s honorary president Beckenbauer led Germany’s organising committee in 2006, but the German Football Association (DFB) has strongly rejected claims either Beckenbauer or current president Wolfgang Niersbach were aware of the existence of the funds.
Beckenbauer said: “I never gave money to anyone in order to acquire votes so that Germany was awarded the 2006 World Cup.”
With secrecy on cases now lifted, FIFA’s ethics committee has confirmed that suspended FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke is under investigation “related to the suspicion of misuse of expenses and other infringements of FIFA’s rules and regulations.”
Valcke was initially put on leave last month when FIFA ordered an investigation into alleged unethical conduct after he was accused of taking part in a deal for black market sales of tickets to matches at the 2014 World Cup.
Two weeks ago, FIFA’s ethics committee then provisionally suspended Valcke for 90 days, pending the full verdict in the case.
Valcke had been FIFA’s top administrator for the past eight years under president Sepp Blatter, who has been suspended over separate allegations.
Two years after completing a three-year ban from football, former FIFA executive committee member Amos Adamu faces being sanctioned again.
FIFA’s ethics body named the Nigerian among several football officials subject to “formal investigation proceedings relating to the suspicion of infringements.” Further details were not provided.
Adamu’s previous ban came after being implicated in corruption allegations concerning the fiercely criticised votes selecting Russia and Qatar as hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
Adamu was filmed in a British newspaper sting in 2010 asking undercover reporters posing as bidders for $800,000 to influence his World Cup hosting vote, saying he wanted the money paid to him personally so he could finance football fields in Nigeria.
He was suspended and not allowed to take part in the December 2010 votes, then banned for three years by FIFA and failed in two appeals against his sanction.
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