Beckenbauer admits ‘mistake’ in World Cup bid but says no votes bought

DPA/FrankfurtGerman football legend Franz Beckenbauer, for the first time on Monday, admitted to a “mistake” in the bidding for the 2006 World Cup. The organising committee should not have entertained a recommendation from the FIFA finance commission to obtain a grant from the world football governing body, Beckenbauer said in a statement released by his management company. The former player and coach said that as head of the bidding committee at the time he carries “the responsibility”.A former president of the German Football Association (DFB), Theo Zwanziger, has charged that a payment of 6.7 million Swiss francs ($7.6 million) made during the 2006 bidding came from a secret slush fund used to buy FIFA votes. “There were no votes bought to win the bid for the 2006 World Cup,” Beckenbauer asserted. Current DFB president, Wolfgang Niersbach, said Beckenbauer came to an agreement in 2002 with FIFA chief Joseph Blatter over the payment to FIFA. The association in return secured a 250-million-franc grant for organizing the 2006 championships. Blatter has denied meeting with Beckenbauer as well as receiving the payment. Beckenbauer, who is one of only two men to have won the World Cup as both a player and a manager, was questioned before a DFB external investigative commission. In his statement, he said he would not make further public comment “unlike other participants whose behaviour I in part find unspeakable”. Zwanziger said on Spiegel TV that the source of the whole affair for him was “the truly rotten FIFA system into which Beckenbauer had to wade to have any kind of chance to bring the World Cup to Germany”. Beckenbauer’s statement failed to clear up a number of open questions in the scandal, including who sent the payment, when it was made and who received it. In the meantime, Zwanziger has come under criticism from German football players and officials over his remarks about the affair, while he has said that he also wants to testify before the investigative commission and present the files he has on the matter.