Bayern Munich honorary president Uli Hoeness said during his testimony testified today that he knew nothing about the purpose of the alleged payment by French entrepreneur Robert Louis-Dreyfus to the late football great Franz Beckenbauer, BTA reported.
"I don't know what the money was for," Hoeness said, ruling out the possibility that it was used to buy votes for Germany to host the 2006 World Cup.
"FIFA was quite a corrupt gang back then. You might even consider buying a World Cup. But I am still convinced that the German Football Association and Germany did not do this. I'm sure,' commented Will Hoeness on the fourth day of the tax evasion trial against former top executives of German football.
As part of the trial, former headquarters presidents Wolfgang Niersbach and Theo Zwanziger, as well as former general secretary Horst R. Schmidt, are accused of tax evasion because they declared payment as operating expenses. All three defendants deny the charge.
The allegations center around 6.7 million euros ($7.13 million) that the German Football Association transferred through FIFA to the late businessman Robert Louis-Dreyfus. The money was declared as payment for a 2006 World Cup gala night that never took place.
Franz Beckenbauer, head of the organizing committee for the 2006 World Cup, had received a loan of the same amount from Louis-Dreyfus in 2002, with the money ending up in an account owned by the now-disgraced former senior international soccer official headquarters Mohammed bin Hammam of Qatar. It remains unclear what the money was for.
During questioning by prosecutors in 2016, Beckenbauer denied ever receiving a personal loan from Louis-Dreyfus. "I did not sign a promissory note," he said, according to the transcript of the hearing, which was read Monday.
According to Beckenbauer, in 2016 the money was paid to FIFA as a type of commission to obtain a 250 million Swiss franc ($273.38 million) subsidy for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. "I had no idea about the payment process. I gave a lot of empty signatures", are his words at the time.
Uli Höhnes stated that despite his friendship with Beckenbauer and Louis-Dreyfus, he never spoke to either of them about the events. "I am only curious when it comes to Bayern or myself. I didn't ask what the money was for. It was a taboo subject," he said.