German prestige took another potentially huge hit last week when the German magazine Der Spiegel broke the story that the committee set up by the German Soccer Federation to bid for the 2006 World Cup hosting rights ran a slush fund of more than 10 million Swiss francs ($11 million) to help secure those hosting rights.
The magazine reports that the committee bribed the four Asian representatives on FIFA’s 24-man executive committee to vote in Germany’s favor. The article went on to detail how the bribe money was obtained and paid out. The article said that Robert Louis-Dreyfus, at the time the chief executive of sports apparel giant Adidas, loaned the money to the German Soccer Federation and was paid back through a FIFA account after Germany was awarded the 2006 World Cup hosting rights.
