football
Zwanziger did not appear in court: DFB trial postponed
Theo Zwanziger did not appear before the Frankfurt am Main regional court. photo
© Arne Dedert/dpa
There is an unplanned interruption in the summer fairy tale process. A defendant is absent from the hearing for a short time.
Because of the absence of Theo Zwanziger’s continuation of the summer fairy tale trial has been postponed.
The former president of the German Football Association, who was accused of tax evasion, was absent from the start of the sixth day of proceedings at the Frankfurt am Main regional court due to health problems.
The presiding judge, Eva-Maria Distler, initially interrupted the meeting for 30 minutes because of a missing certificate and threatened to bring the defendant in if the case was not provided.
At 11 a.m. the court received a confirmation from Zwanziger’s treating doctor, in which a short-term cardiological examination was confirmed as the reason for the 78-year-old’s absence. Because of acute complaints, the former DFB boss was not fit to stand trial, it said.
In the trial, the former DFB officials Zwanziger, Wolfgang Niersbach and Horst R. Schmidt have to answer for allegations of tax evasion in a particularly serious case. They are said to have unlawfully declared a payment of 6.7 million euros made to the world association FIFA in April 2005 as a business expense in the tax return for 2006, thereby reducing the tax for the World Cup year by around 13.7 million euros. All three defendants strictly deny the accusation.
According to the prosecution, the transfer to FIFA was a disguised repayment of a private loan worth ten million Swiss francs that the late Franz Beckenbauer received from French entrepreneur Robert Louis-Dreyfus in 2002.
This money ultimately ended up with then FIFA vice-president Mohamed bin Hammam, who was later banned for life for corruption. It is still unclear why the sum flowed from a Beckenbauer account to Qatar. The hearing will continue next Monday.