Franz Beckenbauer has heart surgery days after corruption allegations
Franz Beckenbauer underwent open heart bypass surgery on Saturday, just days after Swiss authorities opened criminal proceedings against him.
The German newspaper Bild reported last week that Beckenbauer, 70, was still at his home in Salzburg, Austria when the authorities carried out a two-hour search, but travelled to a clinic in southern Germany on Friday to prepare for the long-scheduled surgery.
The Swiss attorney general’s office has launched an investigation into allegations of fraud, criminal mismanagement, money laundering and misappropriation involving Beckenbauer and two former presidents of Germany’s football federation (DFB), Wolfgang Niersbach and Theo Zwanziger, in connection with its successful bid for the 2006 World Cup. The DFB’s former general secretary Horst Rudolf Schmidt was also named as being part of the investigation.
All of the four officials involved were members of Germany’s World Cup organising committee, with Beckenbauer serving as its president. Last year the German news magazine Der Spiegel accused them of setting up a slush fund worth €6.7m (£5.6m) that was used to acquire support from Asia for the World Cup vote in June 2000, with money provided by the former Adidas chief executive Robert Louis-Dreyfus.
Der Spiegel alleged Louis-Dreyfus was later reimbursed via Fifa after the German World Cup organising committee made a €6.7m (£5.6m) contribution for a gala opening ceremony at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium. The gala was cancelled five months before the start of the tournament.
Beckenbauer, who captained the West Germany team that won the 1974 World Cup and was coach when they won again in 1990, accepted responsibility for the DFB’s “mistake” in making the payment to Fifa in April 2005 but has always denied any votes were bought by bribes. There is also no suggestion Niersbach, Zwanziger or Schmidt knew of or were involved in any alleged bribery.