FIFA to investigate Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer, Nigeria’s Amos Adamu, others

World’s football governing body, FIFA, announced, Wednesday, that top personalities in the sport including German football great Franz Beckenbauer and Spain’s top football official, Angel Maria Villar Llona, as well as Nigeria’s Amos Adamu are now under investigation by its Ethics committee.

Adamu is alleged to have breached Fifa’s code of ethics even as the football body did not provide any more details.

The 62-year-old was a member of Fifa’s executive committee for four years until 2010, when he was banned from all football activity for three years, over claims that he asked for money in exchange for World Cup votes.

Adamu’s suspension expired in October 2013.

He was a high-ranking government official for Nigerian sport for 20 years and was once considered to be a leading candidate to succeed long-serving Issa Hayatou as president of the Confederation of African Football.

Meanwhile, FIFA is also investigating Beckenbauer and Llona.

It said inquiries for alleged misconduct by the two were now in the hands of the FIFA ethics committee’s main court for a decision.

FIFA’s ethics committee did not say why the two were being investigated. But Beckenbauer was head of Germany’s bid committee for 2006 World Cup and he voted when Russia and Qatar were awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cups respectively.

Villar Llona of Spain is a FIFA vice president and currently the most senior official in the European body UEFA after the 90-day suspension of its president Michel Platini.

FIFA also confirmed for the first time that suspended president Sepp Blatter and Platini are under investigation. It said it hoped their cases would be decided before the end of their 90 day suspensions.

The two are under investigation over two million dollar payment made by FIFA to Platini in 2011.

A FIFA executive committee on Tuesday freed the ethics committee to disclose the names of people under investigation for the first time.

The committee confirmed that suspended FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke is being probed under “suspicion of misuse of expenses and other infringements of FIFA’s rules and regulations.”

It also revealed for the first time that a former Brazilian federation chief Ricardo Teixeira is equally under investigation.