15th August, 2019
The German Football Association proposed Freiburg’s Fritz Keller as their new president on Thursday as the world’s biggest single sports association looks to end the search for a successor to Reinhard Grindel, who resigned in April.
Keller, who has been chairman at Freiburg since 2010, was the only name put forward by a DFB commission in charge of finding a new head of the seven million-member association.
Grindel stepped down after coming under pressure over income he received from a DFB subsidiary and a watch he had been given by Ukrainian businessman and soccer administrator Grigory Surkis.
He was the third consecutive DFB president to be embroiled in a scandal after his predecessors Wolfgang Niersbach and Theo Zwanziger were indicted in Switzerland earlier this month over a payment for the 2006 World Cup.
The DFB is now hoping Keller, who became a Freiburg vice president back in 1991, can again steady the ship.
Small-budget club Freiburg have been known for their no-nonsense approach to the game, playing an exciting brand of football while also producing scores of talented players who have moved on to join bigger clubs.
“Fritz Keller is without a doubt an unusual personality with all the qualities for the position of DFB President,” DFB Vice President Rainer Koch said in a statement.
“We are convinced that he is the right man for the future of the DFB.”
Keller, an entrepreneur in the field of gastronomy, has been a member of the German football league (DFL) supervisory board since 2016.
The 62-year-old Keller will now be proposed to the local and regional associations before being officially nominated ahead of the Sept. 27 election.