Former Malta Football Association president Joe Mifsud allegedly requested one million Swiss francs (€926,000) in cash for advice to help set up an ice hockey world championship, documents published by German media suggest.
An invoice seen by German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and news magazine Der Spiegel appears to detail a request by Mifsud for the payment back in 1998.
At the time Mifsud was a member of the football world governing body FIFA's executive committee, yet he appears to have requested the Swiss franc payment for consultancy to sports management company CWL, regarding the ice hockey world championship.
The invoice states that the services stem from a contract dated November 19, 1997. The amount was due in cash in August 1998, the documents show.
A separate document published in the German media reports suggests that the hefty payment may have had little to do with the ice hockey championship.
In an internal memo, CWL chief executive Cesar W. Luthi told his accounting department that the payment was to take place only after a FIFA congress held in the summer of 1998.
Contacted by Times of Malta on Tuesday, Mifsud declined to comment saying he first wished to read media reports. He was quoted by MaltaToday on Sunday as denying having any link to the ice hockey championship.
"Any statement or document claiming otherwise is totally false," he told the news outlet.
2006 World Cup controversy
Mifsud is no stranger to controversy. Back in 2007, foreign media had reported that money paid to the MFA for an exhibition match Mifsud had arranged between Malta and German giants Bayern Munich in 2000 was not routed to the football association.
BBC's Panorama had alleged that the money paid for the match - some $250,000 - went into a trust fund instead. Mifsud was MFA president at the time.
Mifsud has always denied any wrongdoing and has also denied any link between the Bayern Munich friendly match in Malta and Germany's successful bid to host the 2006 World Cup, which Mifsud voted in favour of, weeks after the friendly match had been agreed.
Germany's World Cup bid has been the subject of numerous bribery allegations, with international media having claimed that Germany had tried to buy the votes of four country representatives on the FIFA board. These countries were Thailand, Tunisia, Trinidad and Tobago and Malta.
Mifsud has always denied wrongdoing.
In 2017, a Maltese court had dismissed a libel suit Mifsud had filed regarding the allegations.