2024-05-06 12:00:35
Tax investigator Lutz Frank also incriminated the defendants in the summer fairy tale trial on the second day of his interrogation. On Monday, Frank primarily contradicted the defendants’ main argument, according to which the payment of the ominous 6.7 million euros should in any case be viewed as an operating expense for the German Football Association (DFB).
“From a tax perspective, this is in no way permissible as a business expense,” said Frank in the 2006 World Cup proceedings before the Frankfurt/Main regional court and described the booking as a “sham transaction” when questioned by the defense attorneys.
Three former DFB top officials are on trial in Frankfurt. The former presidents Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach as well as the long-standing general secretary Horst R. Schmidt are charged with “evading or aiding in the evasion of corporation tax, solidarity surcharge, trade tax and sales tax for the year 2006 in the amount of over 13.7 million euros in favor of the DFB”. burden placed.
Niersbach, Zwanziger and Schmidt, who like the late Franz Beckenbauer were members of the World Cup organizing committee, reject the allegations. The investigation into the opaque money flows surrounding the 2006 World Cup has been dragging on for several years. In Frankfurt it’s regarding the 6.7 million euros that were declared as operating expenses for a gala.
Frank: “It has nothing to do with good accounting”
“Every employment contract is set out in writing. But there is nothing in writing regarding this, and it has nothing to do with good accounting,” said Frank and added: “The gentlemen paid without any legal reason. That is our conclusion.”
The money was allegedly transferred in 2005 by the organizing committee via the world association FIFA to the now deceased former adidas boss Robert Louis-Dreyfus. Exactly this sum had obviously flowed to Qatar three years earlier in the form of advance payments from Beckenbauer and Louis-Dreyfus to the former FIFA official Mohamed bin Hammam.
Former DFB President Fritz Keller, former FIFA Secretary General Urs Linsi and ex-national player Günter Netzer, among others, are expected to testify during the proceedings.
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