9.15am – Delegates arrive
The first delegates from the DFB Bundestag arrive at the World Conference Center in Bonn. Peter Peters, one of the two candidates for the DFB presidential office, is already there and was also available to ARD for a short statement. The official start is at 10:15 a.m.
Welcome from Bonn from the DFB Bundestag!
In a live blog, the sports show reported today in multimedia form from the Bundestag of the DFB in Bonn. Results of the elections, interviews with protagonists, assessments by experts, analyzes and background information will be available here throughout Friday.
In preparation, a contribution from the WDR magazine “Sport inside”, which shows why the much-vaunted new beginning is becoming difficult.
Interesting facts about the Bundestag of the German Football Association
Time and place: Bundestags of the German Football Association usually meet in autumn. That was the plan this time too. After the resignation of President Fritz Keller, however, the DFB decided to bring forward the 44th ordinary Bundestag from October 2022 to March 11 “in view of the personnel constellation at the top”.
The original plan was to hold the event at the association’s headquarters in Frankfurt am Main. However, due to the corona pandemic, it was relocated to the World Conference Center in Bonn.
The official Agenda does not contain a schedule. Delegates are scheduled to start around 9:30 a.m. on Friday.
What’s up? The most important point is the election of a new president, it will only be the 14th in the history of the 122-year-old association. With Bernd Neuendorf and Peter Peters, two candidates are up for election for the first time. In contrast to previous Bundestags, no candidate will be approved that had previously been agreed upon.
the statute prescribes a secret ballot for at least two candidates. A maximum of 262 delegates will decide whether the 60-year-old Neuendorf or his opponent Peters, who is a year younger, will become the new president.
Neuendorf, President of the Middle Rhine Football Association, is the candidate of the amateur camp and therefore the favorite against Peters, the former CFO of FC Schalke 04. The voting distribution among the delegates shows a clear predominance of the amateur camp.
Which personnel is still exciting? Especially those of Rainer Koch. The multifunctional has been on the DFB presidency since 2007 and is considered a powerful puller of strings. In conversations with the sports show and the WDR magazine “Sport inside”, the former presidents Fritz Keller and Reinhard Grindel accused him of having made a significant contribution to their resignations. Koch denied the allegations.
Theo Zwanziger, a third former president, followed Grindel and Keller’s call to the delegates to end the “Koch system”.
The 63-year-old lawyer Koch is formally retiring because he is no longer running for the office of 1st Vice President. However, he wants to remain one of the junior vice presidents. In the election, there could be a fight vote with Silke Sinning, who belongs to “Team Peters”.
And otherwise? This will be voted on in the Bundestag requests. Some should be waved through quickly, others cause discussions. According to information from the sports show, three ethics assessors resigned shortly before the Bundestag because they saw the independent work of the ethics committee at risk due to Motion 41.