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German Soccer Federation Raided on Suspicion of Tax Evasion

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The headquarters of the German soccer federation and the private homes of some of its members were searched early Wednesday as part of an investigation into tax evasion.

About 200 officers were involved in the raids in the German states of Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate, the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office said.

“The investigations into suspected fraudulent corporate and trade tax evasion in particularly serious cases are directed against six former or current officials of the DFB,” public prosecutor Nadja Niesen said, referring to the soccer federation. “They are accused of deliberately wrongly declaring false income from perimeter advertising from home matches for the national soccer team from 2014 and 2015 as income from asset management.