German boss denies 2006 corruption

Frankfurt - Germany's football federation president has again strongly denied vote buying in the bid to host the 2006 Soccer World Cup.

But Wolfgang Niersbach threw little new light on a payment to FIFA first reported by the weekly Der Spiegel last week.

Der Spiegel reported Friday that a slush fund of 10.3 million Swiss francs (about $6 million at that time) was set up to buy the votes of four Asian representatives on the FIFA executive committee.

At a hastily organized news conference Thursday, Niersbach repeated that Germany won the bid to stage the 2006 World Cup with honest means, while saying he could not explain fully why and how the payment went to FIFA's financial committee.