DPA/Berlin

The German football federation DFB yesterday dismissed speculation it was pondering a criminal complaint against its former president Theo Zwanziger in connection with an unclear payment of 6.7 million euros (7.6 million dollars) to the world governing body FIFA in 2005.
“The media reports today that the DFB is looking into a possible complaint against the former federation president Dr Theo Zwanziger is wrong and without foundation,” DFB vice-president Rainer Koch told dpa.
Koch said that further decisions by the DFB could only come after the completion of an internal and external probe into the matter.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reported Tuesday that the DFB may lodge the complaint on suspicion of embezzlement as Zwanziger was the treasurer of the 2006 World Cup organizing committee which made the payment.
The federation said in a statement Friday that the payment from the World Cup organizing committee to FIFA in 2005 “may not have been used for its intended purpose (a FIFA culture programme)” but that it was “in no way linked to the awarding of the 2006 World Cup.”
The same day Spiegel news magazine reported the DFB could have bought the votes of FIFA executives who awarded the tournament using a 6.7 million-euros slush fund it said was from private funds of former Adidas chief executive Robert Louis-Dreyfus.
Organizing committee president Franz Beckenbauer and vice-president Wolfgang Niersbach, the DFB president since 2012, have strongly rejected the allegations.
Zwanziger was joint DFB president with Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder 2004-2006, and then topped the federation until 2012 on his own.
He said through his lawyer Monday that he has doubts Niersbach wants to clear up the case and that he has sought clarity over the matter from Niersbach for the past three years.
DFB spokesman Ralf Koettker told yesterday’s Bild paper that Niersbach and Zwanziger have not been in contact since 2013 and that shedding light into the sissue should have been Zwanziger’s responsibility while he was DFB boss.
Niersbach and Zwanziger have been at odds for years.
The DFB is running an internal probe and has also asked an external accounting firm to review the matter, FIFA said it will also probe; and prosecutors in Frankfurt, where the DFB is located, have started an observation process, with fraud, embezzlement and corruption named as possible charges.
Germany coach Joachim Loew meanwhile joined those who voiced their support for Niersbach and the DFB, in a statement to dpa. “I experience the DFB ... as a very reputable federation. For me, primarily president Wolfgang Niersbach stands for that, and I have the greatest trust in him,” Loew said.
Loew said that some reports on the issue “unfair” and expressed his belief “that all open questions will be solved.”