DFB President Fritz Keller
The presidents of the state and regional associations of the German Football Association have asked DFB President Fritz Keller to resign. The functionaries withdrew their trust in Keller and General Secretary Friedrich Curtius, as the DFB announced on Sunday. The top of the DFB met at the weekend for a crisis summit with the regional association heads in Potsdam. A conversation between Keller and Vice President Rainer Koch was also expected.
In addition, the assembly spoke out against an extraordinary Bundestag. The public pressure on the DFB in its massive leadership and public image crisis had recently increased massively. After a Nazi settlement in a meeting of the presidium, Keller had trouble explaining. He referred to Koch as “Freisler” and compared him to Roland Freisler, the chairman of the People's Court under National Socialism. Keller then apologized to Koch.
Curtius and treasurer Stephan Osnabrügge had sharply criticized Keller for the Nazi comparison. According to “Spiegel” Curtius reported the failure of the DFB boss to the association's ethics committee. Osnabrügge and Koch, on the other hand, were given confidence in a secret vote on Sunday.
Internally, according to a “Bild” report, the DFB works council criticized in a letter that the association was giving a “disastrous picture” and called for “trend-setting decisions”. “With a new beginning, structural as well as personal consequences cannot be ruled out.” The DFB works council had described Keller's statements as “completely unacceptable and not to be tolerated”.
According to a previous report in the “Bild newspaper”, Keller is said to have addressed the DFB employees with an emotional letter on the intranet. In it, he is said to have called his Nazi comparison to Koch a “stupid, thoughtless and insulting statement” that “contributed to this bad image” of the association itself. The DFB confirmed Keller's publication to the German Press Agency on Friday, without going into the details in detail.
