Women's soccer pioneer Siegfried Dietrich is retiring.

For health reasons, he is stepping down as sports director of Eintracht Frankfurt with immediate effect.

As the Bundesliga club announced on Thursday, the 65-year-old will also resign as general representative on December 31, 2022.

Head coach Niko Arnautis will take on his duties as sports director on an interim basis and distribute them within the organization according to subject.

Dietrich has been active in women's football for 30 years, was involved in the development of the German Football Association and is considered the initiator of the merger of 1. FFC Frankfurt with Eintracht Frankfurt.

He was "allowed to experience and move a lot in German and European football," said Dietrich, who had to take a four-month break last year.

“Amplified signals” from the body

Since the end of the last, very strenuous season, the activities related to the European Championship and the DFB, he has received "reinforced signals" from his body.

"In this context, I increasingly feel that it is currently difficult for me to fulfill my own aspiration to pursue my various tasks with at least 100 percent," explained Dietrich, who will also give up all honorary posts at the DFB at the end of the year.

It was only in March that he was re-elected as chairman of the DFB Women's Bundesliga Committee.

The exit at the current stage of development of German and European professional women's football, in which there would be so many challenges after the impact of the European Championship, was "particularly bitter and painful" for him, whose trademark was always the glasses placed far forward on his nose.

Made 1. FFC Frankfurt the top address in women's football

For Eintracht board spokesman Axel Hellmann, the successes in Frankfurt and also in all-German women's football are closely linked to the name Siegfried Dietrich.

"His lifetime achievement deserves the utmost respect and recognition," he said.

"This also applies to his difficult decision to stop after all these years of great commitment and personal sacrifice."

Dietrich is one of the best-known and most successful personalities in women's football in Germany and Europe.

Under his leadership, 1. FFC Frankfurt, founded from SG Praunheim, developed into a top international club in the 1990s and early 2000s.

With seven championship titles, nine DFB Cup victories and four Champions League victories in 22 years, Dietrich also made a significant contribution as manager and investor to 1. FFC becoming the most successful women's club in Germany and for more than a decade in Europe.

The German World Cup titles in 2003 and 2007 would hardly have been possible without the then Frankfurt players like Birgit Prinz, Nia Künzer, Renate Lingor and Steffi Jones.