Franz Beckenbauer has been banned by Fifa from taking part in any football-related activity for 90 days. The governing body alleges that he has failed to co-operate with the ongoing inquiry by Michael Garcia into Fifa’s vote to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively.

Fifa said the ban on the German football legend is provisional, pending the completion of a formal investigation into his alleged non-co-operation. On Friday night Beckenbauer reacted with surprise to the news, telling Sky Sport Germany: “I had to check the date at first. I thought it was April the first and thus an April fool.”

Beckenbauer was one of the 22 members of the Fifa executive committee who in 2010 cast their secret votes for World Cup hosts. He had never confirmed his own choice until this week, when he indicated he had not in fact voted for Qatar. “Look, everybody knows whose side I was on," he said. "The German Football Association, DFB, had a gentlemen's agreement with the Australian FA and thus I had a mandate.”

Last weekend, based on a cache of documents in its possession, the Sunday Times alleged that Beckenbauer visited Qatar before and after the vote, at the invitation of Mohamed Bin Hammam, the Qatari exco member who has since been banned by Fifa from football activities for life following corruption allegations.

The Sunday Times reported that in June 2011, Beckenbauer visited Qatar as part of a business delegation for the Hamburg shipping company ER Capital Holding, for which Beckenbauer was an adviser and ambassador. He has since 2012 also been an ambassador for the Association of Russian Gas Producers.

Fifa said that Garcia, the chairman of the investigatory chamber of the ethics committee, has been seeking to interview Beckenbauer but received no co-operation, to the point where Garcia requested disciplinary action in the form of the ban.

“A breach of the code of ethics appears to have been committed,” Fifa said in a statement. “The apparent breach relates to Mr Beckenbauer’s failure to co-operate with an ethics committee investigation despite repeated requests for his assistance, including that he provide information during an in-person interview or in response to written questions provided in both English and German.”

Fifa said the formal investigation is being led by another member of the ethics committee, Vanessa Allard of Trinidad & Tobago.

Beckenbauer, who played 103 times for Germany and won the World Cup as captain in 1974, then as the Germany coach in 1990, has for years become involved in a plethora of business interests, often set up by his adviser, Fedor Radmann.

Beckenbauer told the German media this week that he did not respond to Garcia’s request for an interview because he did not understand all the questions sent to him in English and had asked for a meeting to talk about it in German. After the ban was announced Beckenbauer said that his nominal position at Bayern Munich was his only remaining official football role, although Beckenbauer is also a special advisor to Fifa’s football committee. “If they mean my honorary presidency at FCB, then I can live with it,” he said.