The German Football Association is always finding new ways of presenting itself. The video with which the DFB now presented the opening of two safes was definitely a novelty. What could be seen was a walk through long office corridors, accompanied by music, which no fewer than five representatives from the public prosecutor’s office and tax authorities had to manage to reach the objects of interest. It remains unclear what film material would have been sent if the safes had actually contained legally sensitive material, as was quietly feared.
But now the all clear: The authorities asked by the DFB “for reasons of transparency” to the opening act did not have to fill their pockets, the finds were harmless. The safes only contained “a few stamps and around 400 commemorative coins, mostly from the 2006 World Cup. These coins are currently being traded between 10 and 15 euros among collectors,” the DFB concluded the film’s happy ending. One safe is from the 1980s, the second from 2007.
The excitement arose because, after the move at the beginning of the year from the Fleck-Schneise in Frankfurt to the new association campus, the DFB noticed that there were still a number of safes standing around in its previous offices, which had already been occupied by the Uefa football union should open. When asked by SZ, the DFB presented this as a sophisticated strategy within the relocation logistics: The DFB campus was a construction site, so the safes were “more secure at their previous location”. Instead of being in their own new building, they found more security for their own valuables in the premises of another organization, with which visits are to be registered.
There would be another new, exciting topic for the DFB video department
Two of the four safes were known internally, they contained valuables: the estate of former national coach Sepp Herberger and his wife, valuables worth 150,000 euros. But it was initially unclear what was in the other safes, whose existence nobody could remember and which professional tank crackers had to move to open.
Even old drivers like Horst R. Schmidt, DFB treasurer until 2013, could only remember the first two safes (including their contents), but not the ominous others. Were they only needed after his time, possibly in the explosive affair years from 2015? And if yes, for what? After enjoying the DFB video, Schmidt can no longer remember these safes, but he does not want to rule out their existence at the time.
This raises the question of whether the mysterious safes used to only contain banalities, including those related to the original culture of storage in the DFB: If stamps and World Cup coins are stored in safes that take hours to break open, then where are others? Valuables such as DFB pennants and badges of honor housed? Maybe in Swiss safe deposit boxes? A new, exciting topic for the DFB video department.
