FIFA's inquiry all but ended

FIFA yesterday all but closed their investigation into the awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany just hours after it began.

Yesterday morning, FIFA launched a joint inquiry with the German football federation (DFB) and the successful German organising committee, but hours later a statement from the world governing body all but ended the probe.

It was Oceania Football Confederation head and executive committee member Charlie Dempsey's decision to abstain in the final round of voting - disobeying orders to back South Africa from his own confederation and the New Zealand government - that gave Germany victory.

South Africa, the favoured candidate of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, had been hotly tipped to win the vote. but 12 members of the executive body voted for Germany while 11 backed the South Africans in the final round.

The decision of Dempsey to abstain proved decisive as a tied 12-12 vote would have left Blatter with the casting vote - which would have gone to South Africa.

FIFA issued a statement last night saying German satirical magazine Titanic admitted authorship of a fax that purported to be from a German bid chief offering gifts to FIFA executive committee members in return for votes - the fax had been widely seen as an amateurish hoax.

More importantly, the world governing body refuted earlier claims that Dempsey had received death threats prior to the vote.

That version of events starkly contradicts remarks made earlier yesterday by FIFA's own communications director Keith Cooper, who insisted during a BBC Radio 5 live phone-in that Dempsey had indeed been the victim of death threats ahead of Thursday's executive committee meeting.

The statement said: "FIFA stresses that reports, including a comment by its own director of communications (Cooper), were inaccurate.

"In fact, Mr Dempsey had told the committee before the voting had begun that he had come under `extreme pressure' as a result of which he had been legally advised to abstain after the first round of voting. He had not however made references to death threats."

UEFA's president Lennart Johansson made a bid to soothe African anger at being denied a first World Cup for the continent by saying he now supported a system of continental rotation and would be keen to endorse an African country as host nation for the 2010 tournament.

In Johannesburg, South Africa's unsuccessful bid committee launched their own inquiry into the vote that ensured Europe will stage its 10th World Cup, with Africa yet to host a single tournament.

Irvin Khoza, president of the South African committee, said that the probe would centre on the controversial abstention of Dempsey.

Dempsey, accused by Khoza of betraying the South African people in the immediate aftermath of the vote, had been instructed to back England in the first round and then South Africa.

"I don't regret what I did. I made a decision which was in the best interests of Oceania. It wasn't easy. I do not make decisions like that lightly. I chose to abstain because of the intolerable pressure that was put on me," said Dempsey in his defence.

Former German football legend Franz Beckenbauer, speaking in Rome, described claims of unethical conduct as "primitive and ridiculous.

"It is just imagination that we would have toyed with the idea of paying money to obtain something like this," he said.