A controversial topic for the next presidium meeting of the German Football Association has already been cleared away in advance. The association actually wanted to present its financial report for 2020 on Thursday. The public is particularly interested this time because the association chaos that has been prevailing for months has to do with controversial service providers and their lavish remuneration – and the DFB would have to present the total bill at some point. But the appointment was canceled at short notice, a media round in Frankfurt was canceled due to illness, and the performance could not be made digitally.
But even without the exciting figures, a mountain of sensitive questions piles up in front of the Presidium members when they come together this Friday. It is their first meeting since new insights into the work of the controversial media consultant Kurt Diekmann are available: The files meanwhile make it clear that he was already working for the association much earlier than the DFB bosses previously presented (see SZ from October 15). .
In particular, the long-time Vice President and current interim president Rainer Koch and treasurer Stephan Osnabrügge, who initiated the Diekmann contract concluded in 2019 together with the now resigned General Secretary Friedrich Curtius, now have to clarify the issue, it is said – in detail and finally convincing. The internal pressure is great: Koch’s co-boss Peter Peters, who holds this position as a representative of the league and wants to become the next regular boss of the DFB despite resistance from the amateur camp, is urging clarification. But some amateur representatives also assert that they no longer want to be fobbed off with evasive maneuvers.
Two auditing staff have examined the contract – and have raised doubts
It has long since sounded like bad cabaret that even less than a year after the Diekmann affair began, the DFB is not in a position to convincingly explain the background to the cooperation, which cost around 360,000 euros. The official line is that Diekmann approached the DFB on his own initiative in spring 2019. In particular, he was supposed to accompany the investigations by the forensics company Esecon, which revolved around irregularities in the partnership with the marketer Infront at the time, on behalf of the association. That alone would have been a strangely costly job; In any case, it has not really opened up two independent auditing staff who have since investigated the contract mystery.
The latest SZ research has now shown that Diekmann was already involved in answering media inquiries on completely different, highly confidential DFB-internal issues in February 2019; and that again the DFB was listed on an internal list of the agent Diekmann with 16,000 euros outstanding. February 2019, the timing is explosive. Because at that time Reinhard Grindel was still the president of the association, and Diekmann said he was at his fall in early April 2019 Spiegel-Editors devotedly involved – he was working with the magazine at the time. A DFB Esecon project, on the other hand, for which Diekmann could have carried out any accompanying media work, did not yet exist for a long time.
This early work by Diekmann appears even more delicate because it was never mentioned to the examiners. All of this feeds the suspicion – which has always been disputed by those involved – that behind the consultant’s payment there was something other than the service that was officially stated by the DFB so far, but never actually proven.
Internal mail traffic over which the image reported, also suggests that Diekmann had contacts with then General Secretary Curtius as early as June 2018. Of safeguarding Curtius’ interests in relation to that Spiegel “Without consideration” is the talk there. Which would also require explanation – especially since Diekmann was able to cash in well the year after.
The media advisor Kurt Diekmann is at the center of the DFB affair. According to SZ research, he used to work for the DFB than officially admitted.
(Photo: Heilscher / processing: SZ)
Those involved say nothing about any of this. Diekmann announces that he does not comment on business matters as a matter of principle. Curtius did not answer questions in the past, including whether he had been familiar with Diekmann since mid-2018. The DFB stated that it saw no reason for further comments. Transparency looks different.
In view of the dubious situation there is actually a lot to explain. Especially since Diekmann and Koch have been well known for many years. From DFB circles it is said that Koch had denied that he was in contact with Diekmann at the time in question at the beginning of 2019. But it’s not about terms that some people like to withdraw to; not even the question of who exactly was in contact with Diekmann at the DFB. It’s about how the facts at hand can be explained: Who knew when that Diekmann was involved earlier? And with it, what exactly he was involved in – at a time when he was involved in Grindels Sturz parallel to his work at the DFB, and when nothing was known about the Infront topic?
Co-Vice Peter Peters wants to become the new DFB President – and demands explanations
If Koch and Co. stick to the version that they never knew anything about Diekmann’s activities before he was officially appointed for the infront case, this would lead to another exciting question: whether the then General Curtius could possibly have started going it alone in the background, who had to be remunerated at some point. But even in this case: Shouldn’t the others then urgently have to ask what was going on with this consultant when he officially started working for the DFB and accompanying Esecon research in April / May 2019?
When the heads of the regional associations, which had long been led by Koch, came together at the beginning of the week and agreed that in any case someone from the group of amateurs should become the next DFB president, the Diekmann case was obviously not an issue. Amazing enough. In the presidium, which also includes the representatives of the profile camp, it is more likely that tough questions will be asked about bizarre business transactions. Before they ask other instances.
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