HAMBURG – The president of Bundesliga club 1860 Munich has protested his innocence in connection with a bribery affair surrounding the construction of Munich’s 2006 World Cup stadium and said he had no intention of resigning.

Karl-Heinz Wildmoser told DSF television that he is ready to face the club board at its meeting on the issue on Monday.

He said in another interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper: “I will stick to my responsibility as 1860 Munich president.” Wildmoser has been in charge of the club since 1992.

But he told DSF that his son, Karl-Heinz Wildmoser jun., would quit as head of 1860’s football division after losing his job as CEO of the company running the new stadium.

Wildmoser senior was released on bail on Friday, three days after he was arrested along with his son and two other men on suspicion of revealing confidential information about a tender for the stadium to an Austrian company, Alpine, which was then awarded the EUR 280 million construction contract.

The World Cup stadium, the Allianz Arena, is being jointly built by Bundesliga clubs Bayern Munich and 1860 Munich, which will share it as their home stadium. It will host the opening match on 9 June 2006, as well as five further games at the World Cup.

Alpine is said to have paid EUR 2.8 million for the information, money Wildmoser jun. allegedly used for a financially troubled real estate company in Dresden.

“My son was the CEO of the stadium company. I wasn’t involved in this at all. I didn’t have the faintest idea,” Wildmoser told Bild am Sonntag.

DPA
Subject: German News