FIFA Council member Wolfgang Niersbach is to appeal his one-year ban ©Getty Images

FIFA Council member Wolfgang Niersbach will appeal the one-year ban he received from the governing body’s Ethics Committee for failing to report possible misconduct as part of an investigation into the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

The German, sanctioned on Monday (July 25) told German news agency DPA that “after consulting my lawyers I am going to appeal”.

An appeal from Niersbach, the first member of the ruling Council of the organisation, had largely been expected after he was excluded from all footballing activities as a result of the decision from the FIFA Adjudicatory Chamber as he has always denied wrongdoing.

The UEFA Executive Committee member and vice-president of the Organising Committee of the 2006 World Cup was found guilty of two breaches of the ethics code - duty of disclosure, cooperation and reporting and conflict of interest.

The Ethics Committee ruled that Niersbach declined "to report findings about possible misconduct concerning the awarding of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, including potential breaches of the FIFA Code of Ethics".

The FIFA Investigatory Chamber had recommended Niersbach be banned for two years.

Niersbach, who resigned from his role as the head of the German Football Association (DFB) in November of last year, was being investigated along with Franz Beckenbauer as part of a wider probe by FIFA into how Germany secured the rights to the 2006 edition of its flagship quadrennial competition.

Wolfgang Niersbach was found to have failed to report possible misconduct during Germany's successful bid to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which they were awarded haead of South Africa ©Getty Images
Wolfgang Niersbach was found to have failed to report possible misconduct during Germany's successful bid to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which they were awarded haead of South Africa ©Getty Images

World football's governing body began an investigation in March of this year concerning the bid process which led to the European nation being awarded the event in July 2000.

It followed allegations that a slush fund of €6.7 million (£5.6 million/$7.4 million) was set up in order to bribe members of FIFA’s ruling Executive Committee in the 2006 World Cup bid race.

An independent report into the accusations, commissioned by the DFB and conducted by law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, found no clear evidence that votes were bought but also suggested the possibility cannot be ruled out due to the amount of files and documents that could not be obtained.

The report did, however, uncover potentially damaging claims concerning Beckenbauer, a winner of the World Cup as a player in 1974 and then as a manager in 1990.

It uncovered a series of suspicious payments he allegedly made to banned former FIFA vice-president Mohammed bin Hammam.

The report, published in March, said some of the files they wanted to see “could not be found”, including one entitled “FIFA 2000”.

The file was taken out of the DFB archives by a colleague of Niersbach in June 2015 and has now disappeared, it is claimed.

The German bid defeated South Africa by a narrow margin of 12 votes to 11 back in 2000 after New Zealand's Charlie Dempsey abstained from the second round of voting after stating there had been "intolerable pressure" prior to the ballot.