Wolfgang Niersbach and Theo Zwanziger, both former Presidents of the German Football Association (DFB), as well as the organisation's previous secretary general Horst Schmidt, were charged in May with tax evasion as part of an alleged plot to fix the race for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

But the Frankfurt court ruled that there were insufficient grounds to proceed to a trial.

Public prosecutors have one week to appeal the decision to the high district court.

All three officials had rejected the allegations with Niersbach having claimed they were "completely baseless".

"I have always stressed that the accusations against me are completely unfounded," Niersbach, who succeeded Zwanziger as DFB President in 2012 before stepping down three years later, told German news agency SID.

"Now I am just very relieved."

Proceedings were also ended in the case of then-FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi.

He had been charged with aiding and abetting the crime.

The case was related to a €6.7 million (£5.9 million/$7.7 million) payment, which has also been probed by Swiss officials and FIFA's own Ethics Committee.

It had been alleged that the money was used to help bribe members of FIFA's ruling Executive Committee, which has since been re-branded as the Council, who had a vote to decide the host of the 2006 World Cup.

The payment was reportedly made for an opening ceremony event, but this never happened.

Current DFB President Reinhard Grindel welcomed the ruling.

"We see our legal opinion confirmed through this decision of the regional court in Frankfurt," he said in a statement.

"That the case of the €6.7 million was indeed a business-related expense.

"We now hope that we also achieve legal clarity in the taxation process."

A report from law firm Freshfields, commissioned by the DFB to investigate the accusations, did rule that there was no evidence of vote-buying within the German bid.

It suggested, however, that the possibility could not be ruled out due to the amount of files and documents that could not be obtained.

The report also revealed the money was in fact the return of a loan via FIFA from former Adidas chief executive Robert Louis-Dreyfus.

In addition, it uncovered potentially damaging claims concerning Franz Beckenbauer, the head of Germany's successful World Cup bid and of the Organising Committee.

A series of suspicious payments were allegedly made by the ex-player to banned former FIFA vice-president Mohammed bin Hammam.

The Office of the Swiss Attorney General opened an investigation into the accusations in 2016.

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.

A tax office in Frankfurt previously ordered the DFB to pay a total of €19.2 million (£16.9 million/$22.1 million) in back taxes on the payment.