German football is facing the most unusual Bundestag in its history, on Friday in the Bonn Congress Center. The German Football Association has been in existence for 122 years, it has seen 43 ordinary meetings of delegates, and 13 regularly elected presidents have stood at its head. But for months everyone involved has been preparing for the fact that there will be a contest for the presidency for the first time: favorite Bernd Neuendorf, 60, against the challenger Peter Peters, 59.
It should be a great new beginning – the DFB has written that on the poster. You don’t even know how many new beginnings that should be. The Association has become a hotbed of intrigue; after countless affairs, raids and dirty power struggles over the past few years, the image of the DFB is more disastrous than ever. And there is currently only one point of clarity in this dystopian association world: the long-standing Vice President Rainer Koch, 63, is the man at the center of all the earthquakes, the only one who has survived every excitement in an I-know-about-nothing attitude that has long seemed absurd has, while left and right on the wayside opponents, but also fellow combatants sank down.
The last two: Friedrich Curtius, who had to resign as Secretary General after only five years in the course of a vote of no confidence and recently received a visit from the public prosecutor. And the treasurer Stephan Osnabrügge, who has also only been in office since 2016, who received opposition from internal auditors and has promised to resign in Bonn.
But one person wants to continue at all costs: Rainer Koch. The German Football Association, with 7.2 million members the largest association in the world, apparently cannot do without this man even after a decade and a half.
Both presidential candidates do not stand for a real new beginning. Curiously, it is not Peters, although he has been there for a long time, who stands for the direct continuation of the ruling power system, but rather Neuendorf – although he is a classic career changer. The former SPD politician has only been leading the Mittelrhein Association since 2019. But Neuendorf has bonded so closely to Koch over the past few months that new revelations that raise urgent questions about the role of the permanent string puller have not been able to irritate him. It was Koch’s brave amateurs who put Neuendorf on the candidate list in the fall. And they have the majority in the Bundestag.
But the choice between Neuendorf and Peters is not the decisive one. Whether the DFB can then proclaim a fresh start depends solely on how the Bundestag deals with the Koch personality. The multi-functionary from Bavaria, top vice president since 2013 and currently – due to the scandal – interim boss for the third time, embodies the system that is to be renewed. And while the amateur alliance built on being able to cement the status quo with silent agreements, promises and even threats up until the day before the vote, a weak point may have been overlooked.
Koch is threatened with a secret vote in the Bundestag. The southern German association he manages has recommended him for one of the two vice-posts that the association is entitled to according to its statutes. The sports scientist Silke Sinning, who belongs in Peters’ camp, is also suggested – funnily enough (and also bearing in mind the growing public pressure) Koch’s Bayern association did that. Which fuels the suspicion that Koch is building on the fact that Sinning will not compete against him in the end. If that is before Peters loses the presidential election with a crash against Neuendorf.
The key question could be: Will the sports scientist Silke Sinning be the DFB vice?
Day and night the wires glowed, until the end, delegates debated possible last-minute volts and possible original proposals. But what if Sinning still competes against Koch even if Peters is expected to lose in the presidential election – and thus gives the Bundestag the chance to publicly declare its colors on the question: a new beginning without Koch? Or keep it up? A secret contest vote would force the 262 DFB delegates to show the seven million organized members where they really stand.
In the case of a Koch election, the league would also have to show its colors. Not everyone here is enthusiastic about Peters, the long-time Schalke board member; but that can’t have any influence on the follow-up question “cook or sinning”. Recently, the professionals under the new league boss Hans-Joachim Watzke have been remarkably tame towards Koch. In the belief that it will come through anyway and you will have to come to an arrangement? In an election, the club representatives would also have to commit themselves; also Watzke himself, who will in future fall under the liable DFB executive committee members ex officio. All of this puts the sports scientist Sinning in the key role: If she starts, nobody can complain in the typical official way afterwards, unfortunately there would have been no alternative to Koch.
In any case, the delegates on election day could address numerous sensitive issues that affect the leadership of the DFB in recent years. For example, the events surrounding the EUR 360,000 cooperation with the communications consultant Kurt Diekmann, because of which there were even raids on the DFB headquarters and several DFB business partners in the previous week. The criminal authorities are investigating on suspicion that the agreement is a “bogus contract”. The investigation is currently directed against ex-General Curtius and the expensive consultant Diekmann; the questionable contract was also largely initiated by Koch.
Added to this are the inconsistencies surrounding a report by the Freshfields law firm on the 2006 World Cup affair, which the SZ revealed on Wednesday. In 2016, in addition to its official report, it presented a secret document that dealt with possible claims for damages. The finding was tricky because it found breaches of duty by the former DFB President Wolfgang Niersbach within a period that was not statute-barred. But there was no lawsuit – and strangely enough, the DFB leadership wanted to have completely forgotten about the expensive paper. In an internal survey last year, Koch (like the then DFB President Reinhard Grindel) stated that he could not remember ever having seen anything like it. Confronted with the statement, Koch now explained that everything went correctly during the treatment. Another external law firm even checked Freshfields’ legal opinion and advised against claims for damages. The presidency followed suit at the time.
But: This law firm does not appear in the minutes of the Presidium at the time. And Grindel tells the SZ that he can’t remember any law firm that checked the report again. So ask the DFB, repeatedly and over two days: Which law firm did the assessment at the time? The DFB delivers the usual garlands of words that lead nowhere; an answer to this simple service provider is still pending.
The next blow came on Thursday. the mirror quoted from reports by internal tax officers, the findings are devastating. For example, the association failed to reclaim millions from sponsors that it was entitled to for international matches during the Corona period. In addition, the DFB “with the current procedure also violates the principles of proper accounting”; there is a “lack of the most rudimentary knowledge” in the DFB’s accounting system. The DFB denied this interpretation. There was also no tax damage.
So everything as always. It will be interesting to see what the delegates mean by a new beginning.