Günter Netzer’s look as a witness within the trial surrounding the awarding of the 2006 World Cup on the Frankfurt Regional Court has been cancelled. Sepp Blatter, alternatively, is alleged to be able to make a press release.
The 79-year-old Netzer won’t come to Frankfurt on May twenty third as initially deliberate and testify there. The presiding decide, Eva-Marie Distler, introduced this on Wednesday.
Netzer’s rejection was made by his authorized counsel with out giving any causes. It is presently unclear whether or not Netzer will not less than testify by way of video hyperlink, but it surely additionally appears unlikely. A corresponding request from the courtroom remained unanswered, mentioned Distler.
Netzer was apparently an middleman for former Adidas boss Robert Louis-Dreyfus within the affair surrounding the unexplained hundreds of thousands in funds. “Dreyfus approached him with the request to ascertain contact with the World Cup organizers. But he was solely an middleman who knew concerning the declare,” mentioned a lawyer for Netzer in 2015.
Former FIFA President Blatte is to testify by way of video hyperlink
Unlike Netzer, ex-FIFA President Joseph Blatter and the previous Secretary General of the World Football Association, Urs Linsi, have agreed to make a press release by way of video hyperlink. Former DFB President Fritz Keller and Marcus Höfl, former supervisor of the late Franz Beckenbauer, are scheduled to testify earlier than the regional courtroom on July eleventh as additional outstanding witnesses.
The “Summer Fairy Tale” course of
The trial, which started in March, issues a cost of 6.7 million euros that the DFB transferred by way of FIFA to the French entrepreneur and former Adidas boss Robert Louis-Dreyfus in April 2005. Franz Beckenbauer had obtained this sum three years earlier as a mortgage from Louis-Dreyfus; these 6.7 million in the end ended up with former FIFA Vice President Mohamed bin Hammam. According to an investigation by the information journal Der Spiegel, the cash was used to purchase votes. Proceedings earlier than the Swiss Federal Court have been discontinued in 2020 as a result of statute of limitations.
Tax evasion trial
In the trial, former DFB high officers Theo Zwanziger, Wolfgang Niersbach and Horst R. Schmidt must reply for allegations of tax evasion in a very critical case.
They are mentioned to have unlawfully declared a cost of 6.7 million euros made to the world affiliation FIFA in April 2005 as a enterprise expense within the tax return for 2006, thereby decreasing the tax for the World Cup 12 months by round 13.7 million euros. All three defendants strictly deny the accusation.