Beckenbauer aide says World Cup deal with Warner was «reassurance»

Berlin, Feb 11, (GNA/dpa) - An agreement signed by Franz Beckenbauer with disgraced former FIFA executive committee member Jack Warner days before Germany won the vote to stage the 2006 World Cup was an attempt to "reassure" Warner, Beckenbauer confidante Fedor Radmann has said.

However Radmann, who was a vice-president on the German World Cup organizing committee, denied any bribery was involved in Germany winning the right to stage the 2006 tournament.

"I still say clearly we did not bribe anyone," he told Germany's Welt daily Friday.

Radmann said in the days before the vote in 2000 there could have been "a sort of reassurance contract" with Warner, who was "incredibly influential."

"We simply didn't want him to be working against us. That's why we tried perhaps to reassure him," he said.

German football great Beckenbauer was head of the German World Cup organizing committee, and Radmann vice-president until June 2003.

The German Football Federation (DFB) confirmed last year that Beckenbauer was behind the agreement drawn up with Warner four days before the 2006 World Cup vote in which Germany edged South Africa by 12-11.

Warner signed the deal on behalf of the North America, Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF) confederation which was to earn "various services," DFB interim co-presidents Rainer Koch and Reinhard Rauball said in November.

The deal included agreements over matches, coaching support for CONCACAF and ticket benefits for Warner personally at World Cup games, Koch said.

Rauball said it could not be ruled out that the contract was effectively a bribe, even if it was not known if the deal ever came about.

Warner, former CONCACAF president and a former FIFA vice president, has been banned for life by football's world governing body.

He is fighting extradition to the United States to face racketeering, money-laundering and corruption charges amid US Justice Department indictments against senior football officials.

Radmann confirmed Tuesday that the DFB was demanding a sum of 6.7 million euros (7.3 million dollars) from him in connection with a payment linked to the 2006 World Cup.

The sum involved corresponds to a payment from German World Cup organizers to FIFA in 2005.

The money was declared as payment for a World Cup cultural event which never took place. What then happened to the money has not been established.

The DFB has appointed the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to investigate claims of corruption linked to the awarding of the 2006 World Cup. Freshfields is due to present its report on the affair on March 4.

GNA