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Summer fairy tale process surprisingly revived after the 2006 World Cup

Dhe Frankfurt Higher Regional Court (OLG) has revived the so-called summer fairy tale proceedings relating to the 2006 World Cup against the former Presidents of the German Football Association (DFB), Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach, and the former DFB General Secretary Horst R. Schmidt. As the Higher Regional Court announced on Monday, it overturned the regional court’s cessation decision of October 27, 2022.

The proceedings concern the payment of 6.7 million euros by the World Cup organizing committee to the International Football Association. In May 2018, the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office brought charges of tax evasion and aiding and abetting tax evasion, and the Frankfurt Regional Court refused to open proceedings in autumn 2018 due to the lack of suspicion. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court opened the main proceedings in response to a complaint by the public prosecutor’s office in August 2019, and the regional court closed them on October 27, 2022 with a view to the Swiss judiciary being closed due to the statute of limitations in May 2021.

While the Higher Criminal Chamber of the Regional Court was of the opinion that the German proceedings should be discontinued with the termination of the proceedings in Switzerland according to the principle of the consumption of criminal proceedings, the Higher Regional Court now justifies that the “precedent” of the offense accused in Germany had been tried in Switzerland.

Zwanziger, who, like Niersbach and Schmidt, denies the allegations, emphasized to the FAZ in October 2022 that the payment was operational. The “bloat-driving” of the Frankfurt judiciary should have come to an end as early as 2019, Zwanziger said at the time with a view to the OLG.

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