Bayern Munich boss Uli Hoeness takes legal action over report

Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness, who has been charged with tax evasion, said on Thursday he has taken legal action over allegations he hid more than a hundred million euros in a Swiss bank account.

The 61-year-old Hoeness was last week charged with tax evasion by state prosecutors in Munich, after being arrested and released on bail in March, following a high-profile probe that has rocked German sport and politics.

Hamburg-based magazine Stern has carried a report alleging Hoeness had a figure stretching into hundreds of missions of euros in a Swiss account, something the president of the European champions has strongly denied.

The report also claims a further three Swiss accounts have been linked to the Bayern boss.

Speaking at a charity golf day in Starnberg in Bavaria, Hoeness said he has instructed a Hamburg lawyer to "take action against this madness and launch a libel suit" against what he describes as "outrageous allegations" which he "will no longer put up with".

A ruling on whether the case will go to trial is expected at the end of September.

Hoeness was arrested on March 20, then released on bail for five million euros ($6.6 million).

He admitted in a magazine interview published in April that he had stashed millions of euros away from the German taxman thanks to Switzerland's bank secrecy laws.

Hoeness said he had at first turned himself in to authorities in January over an unspecified amount of unpaid taxes.