Former MFA president yet to be questioned by police

The police are still to question former Malta Football Association president Joe Mifsud over the alleged misappropriation of funds linked to a friendly match played between German giants Bayern Munich and the Maltese national team in 2001.

The game saw the MFA making a quarter of a million euros, and subsequently Malta voted for Germany in its bid to host the 2006 world cup. Germany won that vote by a margin of one, and went on to host the tournament.

On Monday, the police’s Economic Crimes Unit visited the association’s headquarters in Valletta to collect evidence related to corruption allegations surrounding the 2006 edition of the World Cup. 

However, MaltaToday has learnt that the police have not yet called Mifsud for questioning. The investigation comes after police commissioner Michael Cassar failed to reply to MaltaToday’s questions as to why the police have never investigated allegations that Mifsud had misappropriated funds linked to the friendly match between Bayern and the Maltese national team. 

Speaking to MaltaToday, current MFA president Norman Darmanin Demajo said he was not present during the police’s visit, however he denied that it was a “raid” as reported in the media.

“The police visited our offices where they were given access to a number of documents related to the Bayern game. However, all these documents have already been presented in court,” he said in reference to the ongoing libel case

Mifsud instituted against his successor and a newspaper. 

“Finally they have done something about the case,” Darmanin Demajo said, adding that were it not for reports which appeared in the media, in Malta and abroad, the investigations would not have taken place. 

Earlier this month, MaltaToday reported that the government and the police refused to commit into launching an investigation into the controversial contract that saw the MFA earn $250,000 in exchange for the national team to play the friendly against Bayern.  

Darmanin Demajo added that Mifsud’s testimony in court has now implicated German footballing legend Franz Beckenbauer who is now facing fresh questions over his role in securing the 2006 World Cup for his country. 

Earlier this week, Mifsud told the court that he had no doubt that Darmanin Demajo was “the snake” who leaked the “secret contract” he signed in 2000, which saw the Maltese FA earn the quarter of a million euros five weeks before the crucial vote to determine the host of the 2006 World Cup. 

In 2000, Mifsud held a seat on FIFA’s executive committee that eventually awarded the 2006 World Cup to Germany. Malta voted for Germany, in a vote that Germany won marginally by 12-11 against South Africa, and recent media reports suggested that Beckenbauer was complicit in influencing the votes of FIFA’s executive committee. 

Allegedly the deal was struck after a secret meeting was held between Beckenbauer – the head of Germany’s 2006 World Cup organising committee – and Mifsud at the latter’s private residence, but the former MFA president told the court he could not remember if the German legend was present during the signing of the agreement. 

“Why would Beckenbauer have flown all the way to Malta to meet Mifsud?” Darmanin Demajo wondered, adding that the contract raised suspicion because usually big teams like Bayern Munich are paid by the host nation to play friendlies abroad. 

He added that in 2000, Malta had also played against Germany’s rival bidders England and South Africa. However the Maltese association did not get paid for the lucrative TV rights, especially for the England game, which would have cost more than the Bayern game.

Mifsud was testifying in a libel case he instituted against Darmanin Demajo after the latter called on the association to investigate Mifsud for alleged corruption, misappropriation of funds and breaching the MFA’s statute. 

The contract, signed between Mifsud and broadcasting firm CWL, saw CWL agree to pay $250,000 in return for exclusive broadcasting rights for the Malta-Bayern game. The sum agreed was scribbled into the contract.  

Notably, the contract includes a peculiar secrecy clause about the contract’s very existence.  

During the same period, Bayern played two more friendlies, in Tunisia and Thailand, and all payments were made through CWL. In his latest book, ‘The Dirty Game’, British journalist Andrew Jennings wrote that Bayern played against Malta for “an extraordinary fee of $300,000 for the TV rights, to be paid by KirchMedia into an undisclosed bank account in Malta.”

Although the contract explicitly obliged CWL – a subsidiary of KirchMedia – to pay the MFA the fee within two weeks after it was signed on 1 June, 2000, it only reached the football association’s coffers in October 2000. 

Darmanin Demajo – who was treasurer at the time – said that he had been informed that “$250,000 had fallen from the sky into the MFA’s bank account” four months after the Bayern Munich contract was signed. 

This week, the German FA’s president Wolfgang Niersbach resigned after saying that he was taking political responsibility for a controversial €6.7 million payment to world football’s governing body FIFA, allegedly used to bribe officials to vote for Germany’s World Cup bid.