Fifa’s ethics committee has issued a one-year ban to Wolfgang Niersbach, the former German Football Association (DFB) president and vice-president of the 2006 World Cup local organising committee and current Fifa executive committee member.
Niersbach has been banned from all football-related activities for failing to report potential misconduct surrounding the award of the 2006 World Cup to Germany.
He resigned last November – citing “political responsibility” – amid allegations a £4.9m payment to Fifa was used to buy votes for Germany’s successful World Cup bid.
Fifa investigators had sought a two-year ban.
“The present case did not look into possible breaches of the Fifa code of ethics in relation to possible acts of bribery and/or corruption with regards to the award of the 2006 Fifa World Cup, but only evaluated Mr Niersbach’s awareness of the said incidents and his failure to report them to the ethics committee in a timely manner,” the panel said in a statement.
Niersbach resigned as German Football Federation president in November, but retained his elected positions on the top decision-making bodies at both FIFA and UEFA.
