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Frankfurt / Main (dpa) - The German Football Association has no integration officer after the end of the cooperation with ex-professional Cacau.
The association announced this and justified the departure with the fact that the 39-year-old joined a sports agency last year as a partner and managing director.
"However, according to the DFB statutes, this activity does not allow the continuation of his commitment as an integration officer," wrote the association in its announcement.
Cacau and the DFB had worked together for more than four years, the former President Reinhard Grindel presented him in November 2016 in Frankfurt.
How the DFB wants to regulate the succession, he initially left open.
Vice-President Günter Distelrath said that they were losing “an important role model for successful integration”, but did not want to let up on this issue.
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“We were able to move a lot,” said the ex-striker, who was born in Brazil and who has played for 1. FC Nürnberg and VfB Stuttgart and has played 23 international matches during his career.
He will continue to comment on integration in and through football, "because the topic will not lose its importance".
DFB President Fritz Keller thanked Cacau: "I can't think of many former national players who invested so much time in an association task and who were so passionately committed to grassroots football."
The DFB said he had more than 200 appointments during his time, including with Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Indeed, Cacau has campaigned time and again for the importance of integration and strongly condemned racism in professional football.
Cacau called several incidents at the beginning of 2020 “disgusting” and “shameful”.
The problem of racism in football has “become bigger.
Right-wing extremist positions are more widespread in our entire society than they were ten years ago. "
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The former international came under fire when he described insults against Leroy Sané and Ilkay Gündogan published by a journalist at an international match in March 2019 as "isolated cases" and called for something like this to be "not made bigger than it is".
Cacau regretted the statements afterwards and made it clear that they were not precise enough.
He only wanted to make it clear that the vast majority of spectators in the stands behaved correctly.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210120-99-98489 / 3
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