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The power struggle between the most important officials in the German Football Association (DFB) has escalated.

On Thursday, one day before the decisive meeting of the presidium, the association's leadership received an explosive letter from the German Football League (DFL).

According to information from "Sport Bild" and "Bild", DFB General Secretary Friedrich Curtius is no longer allowed to participate in league meetings.

The DFL Presidium (nine members) with boss Christian Seifert, director Ansgar Schwenken, Peter Peters (ex-Schalke board member), Jan-Christian Dreesen (FC Bayern), Oliver Leki (Freiburg), Alexander Wehrle (Cologne), Oke Göttlich (St. Pauli), Steffen Schneekloth (Kiel) and Rüdiger Fritsch (Darmstadt) unanimously passed the resolution to ask DFB President Fritz Keller not to send Curtius as a DFB representative.

Official reason for the DFL house ban: lack of confidence in Curtius.

The DFL letter states that in several cases there are indications that external service providers commissioned by Curtius or who report to him have pierced information to the media in order to harm the DFL.

Serious allegations against Curtius

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Because confidential content was announced and discussed at the DFL meetings, Curtius was no longer able to participate.

Keller, behind which the league is in a power struggle, his Vice President Rainer Koch and Treasurer Stephan Osnabrügge, who are assigned to the Curtius camp, are still welcome at DFL meetings.

A few flowers for the newly elected President Fritz Keller (left).

Next to him is Friedrich Curtius, Secretary General of the DFB

Source: dpa / Boris Roessler

The broken trust between Keller and Curtius will be a main topic of the Bureau meeting.

The DFB dispute is about a lot of money, power, disguise and sensitivities.

All allegations are to be addressed on Friday.

In the run-up to the presidium meeting, according to "Kicker", there is a dispute as to whether the explosive topics will only be discussed in the five-person presidial committee.

After Seifert's withdrawal, this committee includes Keller, Curtius, treasurer Stephan Osnabrügge and the vice-presidents Dr.

Rainer Koch and Peter Peters only offer five people.

Keller demands transparency

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Keller calls for transparency when the entire Presidium is involved in the discussion.

At the league's general meeting in December, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge from FC Bayern and Hans-Joachim Watzke from Borussia Dortmund addressed the deficiencies in the DFB leadership.

Curtius was at the center of their criticism.

This was then massively criticized in a guest post by Peter Peters and a “kicker” interview with Watzke.

According to the specialist magazine, the question to be dealt with on Friday is, among other things, whether Curtius relies on two personal media advisors outside the DFB's communications department and thus burdens the association's budget.

In 2017, the DFB also awarded a contract to sporttotal.tv to equip the football pitches of amateur clubs with high-tech video cameras for online transmission of the games.

There was no tender for this award.

Sporttotal boss is Peter Lauterbach, a school friend of Curtius.

Unresolved tax issues

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The association paid around 3.5 million euros for the rather unsuccessful educational work on awarding the 2006 World Cup to financial and legal experts from Freshfields.

The mandate has been criticized since it became known that Professor Dr.

Christian Duve (at Freshfields until 2018) and Curtius were together on the board of the Rotary Club Frankfurt / Main until summer 2015.

In addition, a few days ago, an investigation into the taxation of benefits in kind under the contract between the DFB and supplier Adidas became public.

This case requires statements from Osnabrugge and Curtius.

Among other things, it is about the question of whether Adidas items given away from this agreement were not taxed.