Football, cars and beer are perhaps the three traditionally most widespread positive associations when it comes to Germany. But not this autumn. It seems that the end of 2015 turned out to be extremely unfortunate for both the German automotive industry and football.
Just as the country received shameful information for the German automobile industry about the Volkswagen concern, caught by the Americans at deliberately manipulating the results of eco-tests, another scandal started. Spiegel magazine, citing its own sources, made accusations against key figures in German football and the country as a whole. According to the publication, Germany paid large bribes for the right to host the 2006 World Cup.
The Bid Committee of the German Football Association (DFB), established for these purposes a special 'black cash desk', to which Adidas former chief Robert Louis-Dreyfus, in 2000, the year when the question about the venue of the tournament was considered, transferred 13 million Swiss francs.
It is alleged that this money was spent on buying the votes of four Asian representatives on the tender committee of FIFA. The Spiegel article states that DFB President Wolfgang Nirsbah, then head of the bid committee Franz Beckenbauer, as well as many other high-ranking German football functionaries, together with FIFA, are involved in this corrupt deal.
An official reaction from the DFB has not followed so far.
As a creative producer and host of Vesti FM, Gia Saralidze, noted in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, right now "enough accusations and against Germany and against other hosts of the world cups are being held." "By the way, the German publication also accuses France, which hosted the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and South Korea, and South Africa. If you look, then no country has won the right to host the World Cup honestly," he said.
According to Gia Saralidze, these accusations fit into the logical series of scandals that have shaken FIFA over the past few months. "This chain started in May, after a major scandal in connection with accusations of corruption by various law enforcement agencies of the USA and Switzerland. Generally, there is a feeling that, through these scandals, someone in the media has decided to seize this great, rich and – most importantly – independent public organization. It's not necessary to be a great visionary or an oracle to know who needs it. Of course, it is the United States, from where the attacks on FIFA emerged. So, of course, it is one of the small parts of this whole company deployed against FIFA," the expert believes.
