Former FIFA secretary general is suspect in criminal case

Swiss authorities say the criminal investigation into Fifa has expanded and former secretary general Urs Linsi is now a suspect.

The case relates to Germany's staging of the 2006 World Cup and a suspicious payment of €6.7 million that went through Fifa in 2005 when Mr Linsi was its top administrator.

The office of Switzerland's attorney general said it conducted house searches relating to Mr Linsi on November 23 "at various locations in the German-speaking part of Switzerland".

Mr Linsi left Fifa in 2007.

Former Germany great Franz Beckenbauer is already a criminal suspect along with three other members of the World Cup organising committee in the case.

The complex trail of the 2005 payment linked Fifa, German organisers and Robert Louis-Dreyfus, the late former head of Adidas.