UEFA Executive Committee member banned from football for a year

FIFA’s independent Ethics Committee has banned Wolfgang Niersbach, former President of the German Football Association (DFB) and Vice-President of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC)  for 1 year from all football-related activities immediately.

Niersbach currently a member of the FIFA Council and the UEFA Executive Committee, failed to report findings about possible misconduct concerning the awarding of the 2006 FIFA World Cup™, including potential breaches of the FIFA Code of Ethics (FCE).

However, the present case did not look into possible breaches of the FCE 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 Ethics Committee found that the conduct of Mr Niersbach violated article 18 (Duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting) and article 19 (Conflicts of interest) of the FCE.