It will be a good three months before the German Football Association elects its next president. Chief elections are generally very relaxed at the DFB; After the usual backroom deals, there is always only one candidate on stage who can then get a fulminant applause from the delegates. But this time it could be different. Since Monday evening it has been official what had become apparent due to ongoing internal upheavals: There is (at least) one duel. After Peter Peters, 59, the former SPD politician and current head of the Mittelrhein Football Association, Bernd Neuendorf, 60, officially declared his candidacy.
It was quite unusual how Neuendorf stepped onto the candidate stage – or rather: how he stalked his way up there quietly. For months it has been rumored that Neuendorf should become the candidate of the amateurs and thus the favorite for the DFB office; but he said nothing about his ambitions. And a possible candidate for a fight, it was said in internal circles, he was certainly not aiming for.
But now, after Peters’ initiative and another meeting of the 21 state presidents, he reported with a thin statement: “I have received a lot of encouragement in the last few weeks. That encouraged me to run for this important and responsible office.” The first point of contact are now the representatives of the regional and state associations, the DFL league association and the Bundesliga clubs.
For now, that’s all the candidate reveals. Seldom has an official entered the struggle for the presidency so defensively. This provides a clear indication that not everything is going smoothly for Neuendorf and his supporters: the camp around the eternal DFB puller Rainer Koch.
The key question is how interim boss Koch could manage the matter this time
Since Fritz Keller resigned as president in May and the DFB has been discussing his successor, the key question has been how Koch could settle the matter this time around. As the first vice-president, the Bavarian has long been the boss of all amateurs, and after Keller’s resignation he is now the third time interim head of the DFB. This time together with Peters. Despite his recognizable joint responsibility for the devastating state of the DFB and despite endless scandals, Koch definitely wants to continue to get involved in football: no longer as the top vice president, but as a member of the executive committee. And above all in the princely board position at Europe’s football union Uefa.
Continuing to pull the strings in the background, that would be entirely in keeping with Koch’s nature. Now it is clear that Bernd Neuendorf is chosen to play the model man at the top of the DFB. A new man who has no idea about the difficult internal issues of the company. It had been quietly built for weeks. At a meeting in October, the national presidents decided that in any case one of them, a representative of the amateurs, should become the next boss. Neuendorf dimmed the subject; he did not say anything. Wasn’t necessary, the thing was going.
But then the beautiful plan was torpedoed: by league representative Peters, who wants to run for election – and by the Westphalian Association, which boldly disregarded the comrades of the country representatives and suggested Peters. Now Neuendorf had to get out of the back room, he’s been a candidate since Monday. At the same time, the development is putting its supporters under pressure. Although the amateur camp has a two-thirds majority in the election congress, in the event of a battle vote and the associated secret election, many could move away from Koch and thus also from Neuendorf. A secret freestyle must therefore be prevented, the issue should apparently be dealt with before the Bundestag.
Accordingly, there is currently a deceptive calm on the front lines. Behind that, people are busy working – who knows, maybe there will be a little post for Peters that can pacify his ambitions? The supervisory board head of the league still needs an office in the DFB, because otherwise he would lose his position on the board of the world association Fifa. At the same time, the new team around Neuendorf is being tinkered with. Ronny Zimmermann, a chef loyal to the arch, is to become a candidate for his successor as the first vice-president of the amateurs. The regional associations plan to proclaim their candidates on December 9th.
Does the women’s initiative “Football can do more” still present a dual leadership?
Neuendorf is a career changer in the landscape of officials. He worked as a journalist for a long time, as a parliamentary correspondent in Bonn he even worked next door to Reinhard Grindel, who was also a journalist and from 2016 to 2019 DFB boss. Later Neuendorf was active in various positions for the SPD. The constellation reminds him a little of Fritz Keller’s freestyle in autumn 2019.
Neuendorf is also considered to have personal integrity, as the head of the Mittelrhein Association he is part of the football family, but so far on the fringes of the DFB events that he can be sold as a new beginning. Which would be cute because Koch’s partner in dispute at the top of the DFB, Treasurer Stephan Osnabrügge, could then succeed Neuendorf on the Middle Rhine. Osnabrügge has already announced that it will leave the top of the DFB.
Inside, the new President Neuendorf would be embedded in the group of people who stood for the great crisis of confidence at the DFB. Koch and Co. were able to keep their predecessor, Keller, down for a long time, until they started asking more and more open questions – about increasingly delicate processes. So now Neuendorf could become the fresh face of the old DFB. Unless he is clearly at a distance from the old guard and their machinations.
The question that remains is what the women’s initiative “Football can do more” is planning: it has been trying for a while to build up a dual leadership. But nothing should happen here before December.