Almost six years after the indictment was drawn up in 2018, the so-called “Summer Fairy Tale” trial regarding possible tax evasion by the organizers of the 2006 Football World Cup began before the Second Large Criminal Chamber of the Frankfurt Regional Court.
For around fifty minutes, public prosecutor Philipp Schulz explained why the prosecutors are of the opinion that the defendants Wolfgang Niersbach, Horst R. Schmidt and Theo Zwanziger, as officials of the German Football Association (DFB), declared the payment as a contribution to a World Cup -Gala – which never took place – evaded taxes when submitting the tax return for 2006, in favor of the DFB. Since the non-profit status was denied for 2006, the sum amounts to 13,710,343 euros.
Where did the 6.7 million euros end up?
The defendants, Niersbach and Zwanziger, are former DFB presidents, Schmidt was its general secretary and treasurer, and see themselves as being unjustly persecuted. The transfer of 6.7 million euros initiated by them in April 2005 from the organizing committee of the 2006 World Cup to the International Football Association FIFA, which then ended up in an account of the former Adidas boss Robert Louis-Dreyfus, was a business expense and therefore legally taxable was asserted, but in 2005 and not in 2006, as the public prosecutor assumes.
The background: Louis-Dreyfus, who died in 2009, had given the World Cup organizing committee boss Franz Beckenbauer, who died on January 7th of this year, a loan of such an amount in 2002, whereupon 10 million Swiss francs were received from one of Beckenbauer between June and September 2002 Funded account in Switzerland ended up in Qatar at the company Kemco Scaffolding of the then FIFA official Mohammed Bin Hammam. The nature and scope of the deal between the Qatari and Beckenbauer are unclear.
A comment from Anno Hecker Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 34 Daniel Meuren and Ralf Euler Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 1 Timo Frasch, Munich Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 25
Niersbach’s defense attorney Sven Diener applied for the proceedings to be discontinued through a trial verdict on Monday after the charges were read out and the defense’s opening statements. The matter was finally dealt with by the Swiss judiciary, which closed its proceedings against the defendants in 2021 due to the statute of limitations. This view was also adopted by the Frankfurt Regional Court in October 2022. However, the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court overturned the decision to discontinue the proceedings at the time on April 20, 2023.
It was the second time that the higher regional court had contradicted the regional court – the latter had already refused to open the proceedings in October 2018 because it did not see sufficient suspicion. In August 2019, the Higher Regional Court opened the proceedings following a complaint from the public prosecutor.
Zwanziger wants to be acquitted
24 days are scheduled for the main hearing until the end of October; However, the public prosecutor’s office and Niersbach’s and Schmidt’s lawyers have signaled that they are interested in discontinuing the proceedings in return for a monetary payment. The regional court rejected such a deal at the beginning of the year because Zwanziger was not included in the discussions.
He, in turn, said on Monday that he wanted to be acquitted. He has “sympathies” for taking evidence. His lawyer did not support the application for the proceedings to be discontinued. The chamber, chaired by Judge Eva-Marie Distler, continues the proceedings on Thursday. Then Schmidt and Zwanziger want to get down to business.
