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Gerhard Schröder, then Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Hannover 96 (2017)
Photo: Peter Steffen / dpa
Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder withdrew from the Hannover 96 club after the fuss about his relations with Russia.
The Hannoversche Sportverein von 1896 confirmed this on Thursday at the request of the dpa news agency.
The association had examined an exclusion and justified this with Schröder's closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The parent club had already examined at the beginning of March to what extent Schröder, who worked as chairman of the club's supervisory board between 2016 and 2019, could have violated the club's interests because of his closeness to Putin, despite the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
A letter was sent to the former chancellor at the time, asking him to comment.
Schröder has been criticized for his close ties to Russian President Putin, also because he doesn't want to give up his position as head of the supervisory board at the Russian state oil company Rosneft.
Among others, Borussia Dortmund and the DFB had withdrawn Schröder's honorary membership, and Schröder had voluntarily renounced the honorary citizenship of the city of Hanover.
cev/dpa
