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Beckenbauer has 'limited' faith in Fifa

Pa
Tuesday 14 December 2010 11:19 GMT
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Fifa Executive Committee member Franz Beckenbauer says he has "limited" faith in Fifa after the way it handled the vote for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups on December 2, and the way it has acted since then.

Two of the favourites to stage the events, England and Australia, received only two votes and one vote respectively, and Beckenbauer, who was one of the 22 committee members eligible to vote, feels betrayed by Fifa for revealing such statistics.

He says that the ballot should have remained secret and that nobody, not even he, should ever have known how many votes had been cast for each individual candidate, and in each round.

"The Executive Committee was told that neither we nor the public would get to know the precise voting figures," he told Germany's Bild newspaper.

"After each round of voting, we were only told which candidate had been knocked out.

"And then a few hours later, I hear on the radio who had received how many votes.

"My faith in Fifa is limited."

Since it became public knowledge that England and Australia had not even made it through the first round of voting, and that other strong bids from Spain and Portugal and the USA had been overlooked, Fifa has spent more of its time criticising the losers rather than glorifying the winners, according to Beckenbauer.

He had already announced last month that he will be resigning from his post at Fifa in March and the vote has now given him even more reason to walk away.

"I am disappointed with the way Fifa have dealt with the results after the vote," he added.

"They have made a disgrace of the seven defeated nations, particularly England and Australia."

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