Rainer Koch, vice president of the German Football Association (DFB) and president of football associations Bavaria and southern Germany, gets in the affair for alleged influence on elections in the DFB on the defensive. Two longtime officials of the Bavarian Football Association (BFV) support allegations against Koch, the former chairman of the DFB Youth Committee, Christian Pothe, has reported to the ethics committee of the Association. Koch is said to have made with massive threats that a complacent candidate in 2016 was elected to the DFB Youth Committee.
Pothe, a lawyer and ex-vice-president of the FC St. Pauli, had told the ethics committee that Koch had threatened him with the loss of committee chairmanship if he did not help push through a Southern German associate candidate Koch. Regional and state associations should Koch intimidated with a possible "redistribution of funds". Koch has rejected the allegations as "incorrectly reproduced".
This contradicts Karl-Heinz Wilhelm, until 2018 youth committee chairman of the BFV: The DFB Vice had the regional and state associations at the time threatened very well with negative financial consequences. This Koch had told him after the election of his candidate himself. On Wilhelm's question, how he had managed to install his husband, Koch reported on a meeting of the national association managing director in the sports school Oberhaching. There he made it clear that one could regulate the distribution of financial resources of the DFB to the state associations differently than before, should the elections not run in his favor.
"A fair cooperation is no longer possible after this story"
In the middle of this week, Wilhelm repeated his allegations in a letter to the DFB ethics committee. In it he quotes Koch's statement from the conversation with him about the Oberhachinger meeting with the words: "I made it clear that we have to worry about the distribution of funds DFB new if this does not come." Meant was the choice of Koch's candidate. The DFB vice still remains in his statement: the described processes were "not reproduced correctly".
How Koch seems to act to enforce his interests, shows a scene from 2014. At that time, the District Council Danube of the Bavarian Football Association five years ago, the acting women and girls commissioner Markus Heumader refused to renew his candidacy in favor of a desired by Koch candidate withdraw. Thereupon Koch told him in front of witnesses according to a statement to the SPIEGEL: "You can win the election, but I make sure that you will not carry out this office."
Heumader was indeed elected, but then renounced to take office because "a fair cooperation after this story is no longer possible." A little later, Koch's candidate was appointed by BFV presidium decision.
Today, Koch replies to the accusation that he generally supports the fact that women "assume more responsibility and leadership responsibilities and are therefore particularly encouraged". In this particular case, he made himself "strong together with the Swabian BFV leadership" for a "then 23 years young and as a former junior national player very qualified woman". His attitude at the time had "nothing at all to do with the person of Mr. Heumader".