Showdown at the DFB because of Fritz Keller's Nazi settlement

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The meeting is planned for the weekend.

When exactly it will take place in Potsdam is still open.

But there is always something to talk about for the 21 chairmen of the regional associations in the German Football Association (DFB).

It has been clear since Monday that it will no longer just be about the power struggle in the Presidium that has been going on for months and the starving amateur football in the pandemic.

The verbal derailment of Fritz Keller, who has been in office since 2019, dwarfs everything.

Keller had compared his Vice President Rainer Koch at a meeting of the presidium last Friday with Nazi judge Roland Freisler - at a meeting that took place in Frankfurt.

It should have been loud there.

Fritz Keller has been DFB President since 2019

Credit: AFP / DANIEL ROLAND

Not all the time, but every now and then, it is said, some participants would have verbally attacked each other harshly and accused each other of lying.

Keller's derailment has caused horror in German sport - but the top official does not want to know anything about a resignation.

Koch has not yet accepted the apology

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"I made a mistake, but I will finish the clean-up work, for which I was brought to the DFB and elected with 100 percent of the votes in the Bundestag," said Keller of the "image" and let it be known that he was with Koch apologized for his derailment and who also accepted it.

The DFB did not comment on details, but confirmed Keller's apology.

Contrary to the statements of the head of the association, Koch has so far not accepted the apology because, it is said, he wants to deal with the entire process in a personal conversation with Fritz Keller.

He hoped, said Keller on Tuesday, for a prompt reconciliation.

Keller (r.) And his vice Rainer Koch

Credit: AFP / DANIEL ROLAND

The representatives of the German Football League (DFL) in the DFB Presidium distanced themselves on Tuesday in a statement "clearly and in all form from the expression and choice of words" Keller.

Such a statement is absolutely unacceptable.

The Presidium of the South German Football Association (SFV) reacted "with horror and complete incomprehension" to Keller's choice of words.

"This is a statement that is completely unacceptable ...", it says in a letter that is also signed by DFB Vice President Ronny Zimmermann.

As a long-time judge at the Munich Higher Regional Court, it is completely absurd to move Koch “even remotely close to the highest representative of the unspeakable and inhuman arbitrary justice of the Third Reich”.

"That is not excusable"

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Freisler, who died in 1945, was a participant in the Wannsee Conference and was one of those responsible for organizing the Holocaust and later president of the notorious People's Court, where he sentenced around 2,600 people to death.

Including against the White Rose resistance group.

Nazi judge Roland Freisler imposed around 2,600 death sentences

Source: pa / akg-images

With Dagmar Freitag, chairwoman of the sports committee in the German Bundestag, Keller's behavior was met with complete incomprehension.

"Regardless of the fact that I do not know the context in which the undisputed statement by DFB President Keller was made: Comparisons with one of the most terrible judges of the Nazi era," said the SPD politician, "are not excusable".

The recent incident throws a bad light on the president - and the association, who had hoped to finally get into calm waters with the enthronement of Keller, the hotelier and winemaker from the Black Forest. He had followed Reinhard Grindel, who had to leave in April 2019 after it became known that he had accepted an expensive watch from the Ukrainian oligarch Grigori Surkis as a gift. But even with Keller, there was no calm and a better external image. On the contrary, trenches opened up very quickly. Between Keller on the one hand and Vice President Koch, Treasurer Stephan Osnabrügge and General Secretary Friedrich Curtius on the other. It was about authority, vanity, power - and misconduct from the past that have not yet been fully dealt with.Like the "summer fairy tale" affair.

Keller with Joachim Löw (r.)

Source: pa / dpa / Christian Charisius

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When a DFB statement in October 2020 spoke of “internal dissonances”, of “gradual processing” and “open sights”, it became clear how torn the top is.

In the past few months, internals have been leaked to the public with all regularity.

National coach Joachim Löw publicly denounced this in December 2020.

“There is a risk of explosion for me if things go outside that don't belong outside,” said Löw.

It remains to be seen whether Keller will still be in office. If he does not actually vacate his place after the verbal derailment, new elections could be aimed for at an Extraordinary Bundestag in the summer. Such a short-term convocation is up for debate. The country managers are tired of watching the goings-on at the top of the DFB without doing anything. For months they have been criticizing the behavior in the headquarters. At the weekend meeting they want to express their displeasure with the Presidium.