FIFA said Wednesday that investigations have been carried out into German football great Franz Beckenbauer and Spain’s top football official Angel Maria Villar Llona.
It said inquiries for alleged misconduct by the two were now in the hands of the FIFA ethics committee’s main court for a decision.
FIFA’s ethics committee did not say why the two were being investigated. But Beckenbauer was head of Germany’s bid committee for 2006 World Cup and he voted when Russia and Qatar were awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cups respectively.
Villar Llona of Spain is a FIFA vice president and currently the most senior official in the European body UEFA after the 90-day suspension of its president Michel Platini.Â
FIFA also confirmed for the first time that suspended president Sepp Blatter and Platini are under investigation. It said it hoped their cases would be decided before the end of their 90 day suspensions.
The two are under investigation over two million dollar payment made by FIFA to Platini in 2011.
A FIFA executive committee on Tuesday freed the ethics committee to disclose the names of people under investigation for the first time.
The committee confirmed that suspended FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke is being probed under “suspicion of misuse of expenses and other infringements of FIFA’s rules and regulations.”
It also revealed for the first time that a former Brazilian federation chief Ricardo Teixeira, and tainted Nigerian official Amos Adamu are under investigation. –Â Agence France-Presse
