Report "cannot rule out" 2006 World Cup votes being bought

A report has concluded that it "cannot rule out" the possibility that a multi-million pound payment from the German football federation to world governing body FIFA in April 2005 was used to buy votes for the 2006 World Cup.

Law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has published a 380-page report detailing the movement of funds from account to account, but a lack of evidence meant that the findings were ultimately inconclusive.

"We cannot prove that votes were bought, but we cannot rule this out either," said the report.

The report discovered that a payment of €6.7m (£5.2m) made by the German football federation (DFB) to FIFA on April 27, 2005 was "falsely declared" by the World Cup organising committee for an opening gala and that the money had been intended for former Adidas chief Robert Louis-Dreyfus.

The money then ended up in Qatar, although no reason could be found for why it finished in an account owned by the former FIFA executive committee member Mohamed bin Hammam.

Former DFB president Wolfgang Niersbach resigned late last year when allegations were made public, and today's report revealed how Niersbach had been aware of the flow of the money before it became public knowledge.