A payment made to FIFA during the World Cup 2006 bidding process was to secure "additional organisation funds", the German Football Association (DFB) has said.
A report in Der Spiegel last week alleged that a slush fund - provided by former Adidas chief Robert Louis-Dreyfus - totalling close to $6million had been established by Germany's World Cup bidding committee, intended to secure votes in their favour for the tournament.
DFB president Wolfgang Niersbach, it was claimed, was aware of the fund at the time of the bidding process, along with former West Germany captain and coach Franz Beckenbauer, who led the bid committee.
Beckenbauer offered to make the payment, totalling 10 million Swiss Francs, from his own personal fortune in a private meeting with FIFA president Sepp Blatter as he expected the tournament bid to be on "sound economic footing", Niersbach stated.
"The issue is very complex and I would like to take this opportunity to present things in all openness and honesty. The key message: in the award of World Cup 2006, everything was done fairly," he said.
"We have won the rights with 12 votes to 11. We don't know who voted for us. The claims were definitely wrong. There was no slush fund, there were no votes bought."
Niersbach added that he only learned of the payment in June this year after visiting Beckenbauer, who assured that the figure "appears on all financial statements".
"Beckenbauer's offer was probably made spontaneously," he said. "He can only remember the starting point of the conversation with the FIFA president."
