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Revenues from perimeter advertising at international matches are said to have been deliberately misreported: the prosecution searched DFB rooms and apartments on suspicion of particularly serious tax evasion.
Suspecting tax evasion in particularly serious cases, the Frankfurt am Main prosecutor’s office searched the facilities of the German Football Association (DFB), as well as the private homes of those responsible for the DFB. A total of 200 officials participated in the measures in Hesse, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate, according to the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office.
It is about revenue from perimeter advertising of local international matches of the national soccer team of the years 2014 and 2015. “Investigations carried out in particularly serious cases for suspected fraudulent evasion of corporate and commercial taxes are directed against six former or current responsible for the DFB ”, said the prosecutor.
Deliberately misreported income
According to the prosecutor, the income was deliberately reported incorrectly as income from asset management. This means that the DFB has been exempted from taxes of around 4.7 million euros.
Authorities did not name the suspects. At the time, the president of the world’s largest sports association was Wolfgang Niersbach, who later resigned due to the “summer fairy tale” scandal surrounding the 2006 World Cup, which had not yet been fully cleared up.
“Based on investigations thus far, there is a suspicion that the defendants knew of this tax inaccuracy, but were consciously chosen to give the DFB a large tax advantage,” Attorney General Nadja Niesen explained in the press release.
Marketing agency problems
The DFB and its long-standing marketing agency Infront recently ended their cooperation “amicably” after almost 40 years. This was justified by the results of a study by the consulting firm Esecon. In it, accusations were made against Infront. Infront had rejected this and did not acknowledge the termination by the DFB.
Until 2018, the agency was commissioned to hire perimeter advertising partners for national team games. According to Esecon’s investigation report, the DFB awarded the company the business contract in 2013, even though a competitor had offered up to 18 million euros more.
