How 2006 Turned into Germany's Nightmare Summer

On Tuesday morning, the latest twist in the two-week-old German soccer mystery-scandal unfolded at the German Football Federation (DFB) headquarters in Frankfurt. Police raided the DFB's offices, seizing disk drives, computers, and other potential evidence as part of an investigation into possible tax evasion stemming from the still unexplained €6.7 million payment the DFB made to FIFA in 2005, allegedly in connection to Germany's bid to host the 2006 World Cup. German authorities also raided the homes of the former and current DFB presidents Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach.

The raids, and any potential subsequent legal action, could go a long way in explaining what we still don't know about the DFB's payment to FIFA: why it was kept off the books; who exactly knew about the payment and when; and whether FIFA or the DFB controlled the Swiss bank account in which the original payment was deposited.

This has become a massive story in Germany, surpassed in scope only by the refugee crisis and the recent Volkswagen scandal (coincidentally, both Volkswagen and the DFB are represented by the same law firm). The implications go way beyond buying votes for a soccer tournament.

The DFB scandal is now the source of some nationwide cognitive dissonance. Before the news broke, the summer of 2006 was remembered affectionately for more than just the World Cup. That summer, a kind of cultural awakening occurred: Germans realized it was OK to show pride in their country, something that people, in the wake of World War II, had long feared would be misinterpreted for nationalism. People waved flags, and painted their faces black, red, and gold—gestures that previously would have been taboo. A few months after the tournament, a documentary on the national team was released; its title, Deutschland, ein Sommermärchen (Germany, A Summer Fairy Tale), is a play on Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen (Germany. A Winter's Tale), an epic poem written in 1843 by Heinrich Heine. The name stuck. Today, the Sommermärchen refers to the moment the whole nation took a deep breath, let its hair down, and started feeling good about itself.

But what if the best summer of your life was based on fraud? In the wake of the scandal, people are beginning to wonder if the name still fits. In the German press, some have renamed the summer of 2006 the Sommergrusel, or the "summer nightmare."

If you're unfamiliar with this particular chapter in the ongoing FIFA corruption saga, here's a primer.

Last month, the German magazine Der Spiegel uncovered evidence that in 2005 the DFB made a €6.7 million payment that was officially earmarked for a FIFA gala. The gala was later canceled but the money was not returned. Instead, according to Der Spiegel, it was transferred to former Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus as repayment for 10 million swiss francs that Louis-Dreyfus had paid to FIFA, on the DFB's behalf, in 2000, the year that the 2006 World Cup host was selected. Der Spiegel further reported that the payment—essentially a loan—was guaranteed by Franz Beckenbauer, head of Germany's 2006 World Cup organizing committee, and that it was allegedly used to buy the votes of three Asian FIFA officials. Those officials helped ensure Germany won the right to host the 2006 tournament.

The German Federation doesn't dispute that it made the 2005 payment to FIFA, but it disagrees with the timetable and the alleged purpose of that payment. Louis-Dreyfus died in 2009.

As reported in a Spiegel follow-up story, Niersbach, who became DFB president in 2012, claims that Louis-Dreyfus's payment was made in 2002 as part of the DFB's contribution to a €170 million grant provided by FIFA to the World Cup committee to help stage the tournament, and that it was in no way used to influence the vote. Beckenbauer was supposedly ready to make the payment himself, but was advised to use Louis-Dreyfus instead.

Of course, why the German Federation would have to pay into a grant to fund a tournament it was hosting, and why that payment was kept off the books and made through an intermediary, is unclear. The DFB has so far been unable to come up with a reasonable explanation.

Niersbach, in an initial response to the Der Spiegel story, said that FIFA President Sepp Blatter had asked Beckenbauer—a legend in Germany who won the World Cup as both a player and a coach—for the payment during a meeting in 2002. Blatter denies making any such demands.

Niersbach claims that he didn't know of the payments until this past summer, when the DFB initiated an internal investigation. Zwanziger, Niersbach's predecessor as DFB president, said that Niersbach actually knew about the payment as early as 2005. "The way I see it, Niersbach is lying," Zwanziger told Der Spiegel.

This has rapidly turned into a high-stakes Shakespearean drama. Niersbach is facing calls to resign, and even he realizes that this scandal is bigger than just a soccer tournament.

"The World Cup was not bought," Niersbach said recently. "The summer fairy tale remains a summer fairy tale."