Press Trust of India
Berlin, Nov 10: Wolfgang Niersbach has stepped down as president of German Football Federation (DFB) over allegations that the country had won the right to host the football World Cup in 2006 by bribing the executive committee members of the International Football Federation (FIFA).
Announcing his resignation after an emergency meeting of the DFB’s standing committee, Niersbach denied any involvement in an alleged transfer of 6.7 million euros to the FIFA from a secret account of the DFB in early 2005.
As a member of the World Cup 2006 organising committee in charge of marketing, media accreditation and events organising, he had worked correctly and responsibly and he has nothing to hide, he said in a statement.
However, he is resigning to take the ‘political responsibility’ for the charges made against Germany’s apex football body and to limit the damage to its president’s office, the statement said.
Niersbach, who took over as the DFB president in March 2012, said it was painful for him to be confronted with a past issue in which “I was not involved at that time and leaves many questions unanswered also for myself”.
DFB announced that Niersbach will be succeeded by current vice-presidents Reinhard Rauball and Rainer Koch. Niersbach has been under pressure to step down since the allegations of ‘vote buying’ from the FIFA executive committee members for Germany’s candidacy emerged in October. The bribery allegations centred around a payment of 6.7 million euros made by former Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus to the FIFA for its World Cup organising committee.
