Grindel tipped to lead German FA out of crisis
Little-known German politician Reinhard Grindel was on Tuesday tipped as the man to lead the German Football Association (DFB) out of their current crisis. "I personally support Reinhard Grindel as candidate for the presidency," Rainer Koch, the interim DFB president, told reporters after the football bosses of Germany's state federations met in Hanover on Tuesday. Alongside Reinhard Rauball, Koch was appointed joint chief of the DFB after predecessor Wolfgang Niersbach resigned last week due to the ongoing investigation into allegations Germany bought the right to host the 2006 World Cup finals. Grindel, who has been treasurer of the DFB since 2013, is the only candidate so far to have declared interest in replacing Niersbach to attempt to steer German football, with the results of an internal inquiry expected early in 2016. The 54-year-old is a member of parliament for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party and is largely unknown to German football fans. He has said he will give up his political work, which includes sitting on the Bundestag's sports committee, if elected DFB boss. But there have been calls here to bring in an outsider to lead the embattled DFB. "The old circle of functionaries must be broken up. What is urgently needed is a reorganisation of the DFB with transparent structures," said outspoken Green party politician Ozcan Mutlu in the Rheinische Post newspaper. German football was thrown into chaos when magazine Der Spiegel last month alleged a payment in 2000 of 6.7 million euros ($7.2m) had helped in the DFB's bid to be awarded the right to host the 2006 World Cup by FIFA. As a result, three ex-DFB officials, including Niersbach and his predecessor as DFB president Theo Zwanziger, are being investigated here for tax evasion. The reputation of German football icon Franz Beckenbauer, who headed the organising committee for the 2006 finals, is in tatters. Last Tuesday, the 70-year-old came under renewed pressure when the DFB confirmed reports of a draft agreement, signed in part by Beckenbauer, which daily Bild claims was aimed at buying "votes for the German bid" in July 2000 -- just four days before Germany was awarded the 2006 World Cup.
