The many question marks will probably remain forever, but legally the ongoing topic of summer fairy tales has also come to an end in Germany.
The district court in Frankfurt am Main has dropped the proceedings in the affair surrounding the 2006 World Cup against former DFB officials Theo Zwanziger, Horst R. Schmidt and Wolfgang Niersbach on suspicion of tax evasion. This was confirmed by the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office of the German Press Agency.
A process in Switzerland had already failed in the previous year. In the neighboring country, the former top officials of the German Football Association received compensation after the proceedings were discontinued. The four originally accused, who also included former FIFA Secretary General Urs Linsi, received a total of around 705,000 Swiss francs (640,000 euros). The sum was far below the demands.
Swiss proceedings suspended due to statute of limitations
The Swiss federal prosecutor’s office had tried to burden the ex-officials Zwanziger (77), Schmidt (80), Niersbach (71) and Linsi (73) with legal costs. She argued, among other things, that the four defendants complicated the case before it was dropped in April 2020 due to the statute of limitations. The Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office had also investigated the quartet in the same factual context.
The district court in Frankfurt announced on Monday: “In the requested criminal case, no information is currently being given.” According to Schmidt’s defense, the proceedings were discontinued because of “an unresolvable procedural obstacle”. Double punishment by a court in Switzerland and in Germany is not possible.
“Thus, the investigations by the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt, which were in breach of their duties from the outset and which also provided legal assistance to the Swiss federal prosecutor’s office in a highly questionable manner, have come to an appropriately embarrassing end for the tax investigation and the Frankfurt judiciary,” Zwanziger commented on the decision about his legal counsel .
At the same time, his lawyer announced that he would assert claims of “not less than 50,000 euros” for the violations of personality – “in view of my client’s impeccable reputation, the duration of the proceedings of more than seven years with insufficient procedural control and omissions in the investigative measures.”
Since Zwanziger is now unable to defend himself in court against the allegation of tax evasion, on September 21 he also filed a criminal complaint with the Hessian Minister of Justice against tax investigators, public prosecutors and judges of the Higher Regional Court.
Payment of 6.7 million euros
The DFB is still working on the summer fairy tale affair internally – a sensational, expensive report from the Freshfields law firm had not brought any earth-shattering findings. FIFA announced in February 2021 that it was no longer pursuing the ethics proceedings against Zwanziger, former World Cup OC boss Franz Beckenbauer and Schmidt due to the statute of limitations.
Zwanziger, Schmidt and Linsi were accused of fraud in Switzerland, and Niersbach of aiding and abetting fraud. A procedure against Beckenbauer (77) had been separated because of his state of health.
In essence, it was a payment of 6.7 million euros from the DFB via the world association FIFA to the businessman Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who has since died. The money was declared as a contribution to a gala for the 2006 World Cup, which never took place. In 2002, Beckenbauer had received a loan from Louis-Dreyfus for the same amount, which ultimately disappeared into the accounts of former FIFA Vice-President Mohamed bin Hammam. To this day it is unclear what the money went to.
Schmidt’s lawyer said that the Frankfurt court had “correctly determined” that “the Swiss Federal Criminal Court’s dismissal decision of May 20, 2021” resulted in “a criminal prosecution pursuant to Art. 54 SDÜ, since both criminal proceedings related to the same facts”. The costs of the procedure are now borne by the German state treasury. Now the “criminal prosecution of Mr. Horst R. Schmidt is at least coming to a temporary end,” it said.
The investigations and the parallel proceedings in Germany and Switzerland have “burdened our client a lot over the past seven years,” said Schmidt’s defense attorney. They attached “great importance to the statement that Mr. Schmidt had never made himself liable to prosecution under any circumstances”. “So it stays the same: The summer fairy tale of 2006 was the best World Cup of all time,” it said.
