Franz Beckenbauer has hit out at the new German FA (DFB) leaders, and told Suddeutsche Zeitung they did not answer a letter in which he offered to talk to them about the ongoing 2006 World Cup scandal.
Last month, German weekly Der Spiegel reported that ahead of the vote for the host country of the 2006 World Cup in 2000, a slush fund of 10.3 million Swiss francs (about $6m at that time) -- with a financial injection from former Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus -- was set up to buy the votes of Asian representatives on FIFA's executive committee.
In early November, tax investigators raided the DFB headquarters in Frankfurt as well as the private homes of Wolfgang Niersbach, Theo Zwanziger and Horst R. Schmidt, who had all been on the 2006 World Cup organising committee, amid suspicions of fraud concerning a €6.7m payment to FIFA in 2005, which was falsely declared on the association's 2006 tax return.
Niersbach took "political responsibility" for the affair and left his post as the DFB president shortly after. He has been replaced by two acting presidents, Rainer Koch and Reinhard Rauball, and a new president is set to be elected sometime in 2016.
Beckenbauer, the head of both the bid and organising committee, has since said he made a "mistake" in making a €6.7m payment to FIFA in return for a financial grant to the organising committee, but has denied the claims the money was used to buy the votes of four FIFA Executive Committee members.
In a longer interview set to be published on late Friday afternoon, Beckenbauer has criticised acting DFB presidents Koch and Rauball, who urged Bayern Munich's honorary president to take a stance in mid-November.
The association's internal investigations showed Beckenbauer and his advisor Fedor Radmann, who was also on the bid committee, had drafted a contract offering former FIFA Executive Committee member Jack Warner, who was banned from football activity for life in September, "various services" only days before the vote in July 2000.
At that time, Rauball told Die Welt: "The contract was attempted bribery. Verbalisations allow that conclusion."
In the Suddeutsche Zeitung interview, Beckenbauer, who had been urged by Koch to take a stance, said he offered the new DFB leaders his help in a handwritten letter, and offered "face time" in Frankfurt or any other place.
"They did not even answer whether they want to talk to me. Nothing," Beckenbauer said.
He added that it came as a surprise to him that on the day of the France friendly last Friday, the new DFB leaders said in a TV interview that the 70-year-old should better speak to DFB's external investigators Freshfields again.
Beckenbauer said: "When you've known each other for such a long time, and first you get no reaction and then you are informed on the television: Where are we? Where's the class?"
He added that it is down to him and his lawyers to decide if and when he will talk to DFB again.
Koch and Rauball are set to reply to Beckenbauer later on Friday, SID reported.