Former DFB President Fritz Keller defended his successor Bernd Neuendorf’s voting behavior when awarding the World Cup to Saudi Arabia.
“The DFB had no chance to oppose it,” said Keller on Deutschlandfunk. “We can’t always stand aside and expect football to do what politics can’t.” With a view to the 2026 World Cup in the USA, Mexico and Canada, he said that the USA with its new President Donald Trump “does not have our democratic attitude”.
Keller: “The DFB only has one voice, like Luxembourg and Liechtenstein”
The DFB only has one vote, like Liechtenstein and Luxembourg, said Keller. As in the UN, the problem is that there are more undemocratic than democratic states.
Before the award, Bernd Neuendorf spoke out in favor of the two applications for the 2030 World Cup to six countries and for the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia. Neuendorf doesn’t just vote for the award at Congress. As a member of the FIFA Council, he supported several measures initiated by FIFA President Gianni Infantino in unanimous decisions that secured the 2034 World Cup for Saudi Arabia. These decisions ensured that there was no competition for Saudi Arabia and that the World Cup tournaments were awarded in pairs – which was recently banned due to fears about deals. Liechtenstein and Luxembourg were not involved in these measures; only 38 people sit on the FIFA Council.
“It was very cleverly done by Infantino,” said Keller about the FIFA President. “We can talk about the fact that it’s not democratically clean. But tactically they did it very cleverly.”
Norway criticized Human rights organizations warn
In contrast to the DFB, Norway’s association formulated open criticism and insisted on a note in the minutes of the FIFA Congress. Norway’s association president Lise Klaveness had written to FIFA that her association had concerns about the award procedure decided by the FIFA Council, saying it went against the reforms that FIFA had decided on after the 2016 scandals. Klaveness had announced that he wouldn’t be clapping. These were the only objections at the congress.
Norway’s association president Lise Klaveness
Eleven stadiums will be newly built and four will be modernized for the tournament. Almost 200,000 new hotel rooms are to be created. Human rights organizations had called for the award to be stopped. After the hosting role was handed over, several organizations said: “FIFA and the national associations that voted in favor can never claim that they were unaware of the seriousness of the risks.”
Human rights organizations fear exploitation of workers, as occurred during the preparations for the World Cup in Qatar in 2022. “This decision will put many lives at risk,” said Steve Cockburn of Amnesty International.
Keller: “We behaved ridiculously in Qatar”
Keller referred to the DFB’s behavior at the 2022 World Cup. “Political statements were demanded in Qatar. We behaved ridiculously and were laughed at,” said Keller. The DFB and several other European countries wanted to wear the “One Love” captain’s armband as a symbol of human rights. The teams took off this bandage when FIFA threatened yellow cards and unspecified sporting sanctions. “We have to take advantage of the situation,” said Keller, in order to be able to export the positive things “that we have.”
Fritz Keller was elected President of the DFB at the DFB Bundestag in 2019. In 2021, at a DFB executive board meeting, Keller compared DFB Vice President Rainer Koch (a full-time judge) with the Nazi judge Roland Freisler, who handed down more than 2,600 death sentences at the People’s Court during the Nazi dictatorship and was a participant in the Wannsee Conference. As a result, Keller resigned. After Peter Peters and Koch briefly led the DFB on a temporary basis, Neuendorf was elected DFB President in 2022.
DFB President Fritz Keller (l.) and Vice President Rainer Koch