Germany's 2006 World Cup organizers made a payment to FIFA in return for a substantial financial grant ahead of the tournament, according to German football federation president Wolfgang Niersbach.
Niersbach again strongly denied any vote-buying in the winning bid to host the 2006 World Cup, saying on Thursday that "everything was done with honest means."
Niersbach said a payment to FIFA first reported by the weekly Der Spiegel last week was privately arranged to secure a FIFA grant to the German World Cup organisers.
The deal was made during a private meeting between FIFA President Sepp Blatter and World Cup organising committee chief Franz Beckenbauer in January 2002, Niersbach said. The meeting came two years after Germany had been awarded the World Cup by one vote in 2000.
The world's ruling body of football said it was conducting an internal investigation and that it would be asking DFB (the German federation) for cooperation. The DFB is also investigating the case and has also asked an outside law firm to look into the affair as well.
Der Spiegel reported that a slush fund of 10.3 million Swiss francs (about $6 million at that time) was set up to buy the votes of four Asian representatives on the FIFA executive committee.
At a hastily organized news conference Thursday, Niersbach repeated that Germany had done nothing wrong in bidding for the 2006 World Cup.
"The key message is that everything was done with honest means for the 2006 World Cup bid. There were no slush funds, no vote-buying," said Niersbach, who had denied the Spiegel allegations already on Monday.
Niersbach said he visited Beckenbauer at his Austrian residence on Tuesday and learned about the deal reached between him and Blatter. FIFA was ready to finance the organisers to the tune of 250 million Swiss francs (about 230 million euros at current rates) in return for a payment of 10 million Swiss francs, Niersbach said.
Beckenbauer was ready to use his personal funds to secure the grant but was told by his advisers not to do so and the money was finally given to FIFA's financial committee by French businessman Robert louis-Dreyfus, who was boss of the Adidas sporting goods company at the time, according to Niersbach. Dreyfus died in 2009.
FIFA said on Thursday that "in general the FIFA Finance Committee is not authorized to receive payments in any way, nor does it have its own bank account."
The German World Cup organising committee paid the money back through FIFA in early 2005, Niersbach said. The sum had been earmarked for an opening gala that had been canceled.