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Franz Beckenbauer banned by Fifa for not taking part in Qatar inquiry Franz Beckenbauer banned by Fifa for not taking part in Qatar inquiry
(35 minutes later)
Franz Beckenbauer has been banned from all football activities for 90 days for not cooperating with an investigation into Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid. Franz Beckenbauer has been banned by Fifa from taking part in any football-related activity for 90 days, alleging that he has failed to co-operate with the ongoing inquiry by Michael Garcia into Fifa’s vote to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar. Fifa said the ban on the German football legend is provisional, pending the completion of a formal investigation into his alleged non-co-operation.
Fifa says the 90-day provisional ban was requested by the ethics prosecutor Michael Garcia. Beckenbauer was one of the 22 members of the Fifa executive committee (exco) who in 2010 cast their secret votes for World Cup hosts, and he has never declared for which country he voted. At the weekend the Sunday Times alleged, based on a cache of documents in its possession, that Beckenbauer visited Qatar before and after the vote, on the invitation of Mohamed Bin Hammam, the Qatari exco member who has since himself been banned by Fifa from football activities for life following corruption allegations. The Sunday Times reported that in June 2011, Beckenbauer visited Qatar as part of a business delegation for the Hamburg shipping company ER Capital Holding, for which Beckenbauer was an advisor and ambassador. He has since 2012 also been an ambassador for the Association of Russian Gas Producers.
Beckenbauer was a voting member of Fifa’s executive committee in December 2010 when it chose Qatar, and Russia as the 2018 World Cup host. Fifa said that Garcia, the chairman of the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee, has been seeking to interview Beckenbauer, but received no co-operation, to the point where Garcia requested disciplinary action in the form of the ban.
He said last week that he rejected two attempts by Garcia to speak with him. “A breach of the code of ethics appears to have been committed,” Fifa said in a statement. “The apparent breach relates to Mr Beckenbauer’s failure to co-operate with an ethics committee investigation despite repeated requests for his assistance, including that he provide information during an in-person interview or in response to written questions provided in both English and German.”
Beckenbauer won the World Cup as both a player and coach is an adviser to Fifa’s football committee and a global ambassador for Bayern Munich. Fifa said the formal investigation is being led by another member of the ethics committee, Vanessa Allard of Trinidad and Tobago.
Beckenbauer, who played 103 times for Germany and won the World Cup as captain in 1974, then as the Germany coach in 1990, has for years become involved in a plethora of business interests, often set up by his advisor, Fedor Radmann.
Beckenbauer told the German media earlier this week that he did not respond to Garcia’s request for an interview because he did not understand all the questions sent to him in English. His account of what happened next is at odds with Garcia’s and Fifa’s statement: “I politely requested a meeting in which we could talk about the matter in German,” Beckenbauer said. “That was apprently not desired. That aside, I wouldn’t be able to contribute anyting to clear the matter anyway.”