Bernd Neuendorf will be the favorite in the election for the DFB presidential office on Friday.
Photo: imago images/Football Association Middle Rhine
The place is historical. The 44th Ordinary Bundestag of the German Football Association (DFB) is taking place this Friday in the large rooms of today’s World Conference Center in Bonn, where the last session of the German Bundestag took place on July 1, 1999 before it moved to Berlin. But the crisis in which the largest German individual sports association is stuck in an endless loop is also historic. And so it is that for the first time in the 122-year history of the DFB, two candidates face the 262 delegates for a secret election of the new association president: the favorite Bernd Neuendorf, currently president of the Mittelrhein Football Association, and Peter Peters, previously chairman of the German supervisory board Football League (DFL) and member of the DFB Presidium.
The starting position is quite simple: Neuendorf is the preferred candidate for the amateur representatives, Peters enjoys more support in the professional camp. Because the DFL only has 90 votes – almost a third – and the regional and state associations spoke out in favor of Neuendorf long before the concepts of the candidates were presented, the 60-year-old can approach this election with certainty of victory. The former spokesman for SPD chairman Gerhard Schröder and State Secretary for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport in North Rhine-Westphalia still lacks a public profile. Nevertheless, he wants to occupy the ejection seat at the top of the DFB. Holger Stahlknecht, President of the Saxony-Anhalt Football Association, recently spoke bluntly of a suicide mission. Because the umbrella organization for more than seven million members has developed into a hotbed of intrigues.
Neuendorf’s plan is to make a fresh start and focus on football. Some people before him had said something similar. It was actually never realised. Predecessor Fritz Keller also proclaimed noble intentions such as the unity of amateurs and professionals or better interaction between men and women at the Frankfurt Trade Fair in autumn 2019. After that, the winemaker got under the wheels in Frankfurt’s intrigue barracks – and ultimately committed an unforgivable Nazi derailment in a dispute with his then Vice President Rainer Koch, after which Keller had to resign in May 2021.
Koch has been interim president ever since. Keller and the former DFB bosses Reinhard Grindel and Theo Zwanziger, who also fell, recently attacked Koch sharply. He actually managed the feat of repeatedly installing presidents, sometimes in a hurry, in order to dismantle them just as quickly (after misconduct). The trio now called for a departure from the “Koch system”. Keller even said that Koch was “a crackpot, he lives off intrigue.”
The accused dismissed the allegations as “absurd”, once again suspected a conspiracy and of course wants to continue. His close connection to the media consultant Kurt Diekmann alone – which is why the public prosecutor’s office arrived at the DFB headquarters again last week – seems disreputable. The 63-year-old chef is inspired by the idea of being in the front row at all events as the German representative in the executive of the European umbrella organization Uefa by the time of the 2024 European Championship in Germany at the latest.
While Neuendorf tried diplomatic contortions in the Koch case (“I haven’t had any experiences that would justify renouncing Rainer Koch”), Peters (“He doesn’t want me, I don’t want him”) attacked the string puller head-on. At the same time, however, the 59-year-old conceals his greatest weakness: Peters has not convincing arguments at association or club level, let alone pressed the right buttons. But you can only be successful at the DFB if the relationships are right.
For this reason, there is no candidate for the top post this time either. Katja Kraus from the women’s initiative “Football can do more” complained in the “FAZ”: “Two candidates who come from the existing DFB system and are each assigned to one camp are really not a democratic achievement.” Many regret that their Movement renounced its own candidacy, and that again no dual leadership will be elected. But for Kraus and Co., too many decisions are still made by men in backrooms.
Neuendorf and Peters have at least brought women into their shadow cabinets. Dealing with Silke Sinning, who is vice-president in Peters’ team, reveals a lot of the criticized mendacity: The Bavarian state association (firmly in the hands of Rainer Koch) nominated Sinning for a secret vote against Koch. Since she is considered a vehement opponent of the interim boss, this looks like an opportunity to overthrow Koch.
The candidature of the university professor makes little sense if Neuendorf is first elected president. She has hardly anything in common with his program. When asked, the 52-year-old says: “I don’t know yet whether I will stand up if Neuendorf is elected. I decide on the spot what my gut and my heart call out to me.« Koch should be able to count on Sinning not even competing and then standing there without an opponent.
This sideshow could be the only exciting point of this DFB Bundestag. Unlike at an annual general meeting at FC Bayern, angry members can’t suddenly step up to the lectern. In fact, that might be what is sorely needed. After watch affairs, tax raids, trench warfare and pleasure trips, the loss of confidence in the DFB officials is immense. 8,000 DFB members recently took part in an association’s own online survey. With 97 percent, they stated that their main wish was to regain “credibility and transparency”. It is doubtful whether this will come true with this DFB Bundestag.
