The DFB ethics committee has had a sensitive report since June 2021. It comes from Reinhard Grindel, who had to resign as DFB President in 2019 in the wake of personal affairs, as did his successor Fritz Keller two years later. Grindel indicated that Vice President Rainer Koch entrusted him in 2015, well before the unveiling of the “World Cup summer fairy tale” mirror research something hot against Wolfgang Niersbach. The DFB even followed up on this alarming tip; unsuccessful. Niersbach, the DFB President, swept the World Cup affair out of office immediately afterwards. And like his successors, he also senses the eternal Vice Chef behind his troubles. Koch himself always vehemently denied this.
Shouldn’t Grindel’s accusation have long since been investigated? Especially since he even calls witnesses? And because such a situation, if it were true, goes far beyond the DFB justice system?
Immediately after Grindel’s complaint, the critical ethics committee was blown up on a bizarre tour and replaced by people who were more loyal to the line. Grindel’s torpedo now rests in their poison cabinet. The thing cannot simply be negotiated away, another ethicist farce shows that. The committee under the personnel consultant Irina Kummert stopped investigations into Koch’s behavior towards the former top referee Bibiana Steinhaus, the DFB announced this in December. But then the responsible judges of the DFB sports court declared that they had only approved the setting on the condition that Kummert and Co. found “unethical behavior” on the part of Koch. If the sports judges act so correctly here – what would happen if the ethicists wanted to post Grindel’s sensitive complaint without serious explanation?
An original legal concept
Now suddenly, as a coincidence, there is a tailor-made problem solution in the room: amendments to the statutes on ethics work, as proposed by the DFB legal department led by Koch on Friday to the Presidium for the Bundestag in March. They reveal how such a delicate cause as Grindel’s ad could simply disappear without a trace. Because according to the change request, ethics boss Kummert should receive a wealth of power that is known from medieval palatinate castles: the non-lawyer should only be able to check the substance of advertisements and also be allowed to post them very discreetly. Without an examination by the lawyers at the DFB court, gladly without informing those involved and the public.
An original legal opinion reveals that the investigator (who is noticeably close to Koch) is allowed to fix everything himself if necessary. It stands for the kind of new departure in the scandal association that those who stand for the affairs operate. Even if the motion (and others, such as the one to contain the remuneration committee) is modified by the Bundestag: the very idea that every regime under Koch and Co. can only lead into the gloomy past is unmasked. Which will be even more murky if the ethicists do not tackle this sensitive issue soon.