The Bavarian Football Association (BFV) mourns the loss of its former President Heinrich Schmidhuber. As the BFV announced on Tuesday, the honorary president died on Monday at the age of 87. Accordingly, Schmidhuber had sustained a femoral neck fracture four weeks earlier. “The proven financial expert not only hesitated to take over the office of President of the Bavarian Football Association in the most turbulent times and to lead him back into calm waters, which is the basis for today’s very good financial and structural starting position, but also had DFB treasurer also played a decisive part in the summer fairy tale of 2006 in Germany,” said BFV President Christoph Kern.
Schmidhuber laid the foundation for his career as a functionary in the association as a co-founder of the Wolfstein referee group, which is still active today and of which he was chairman from 1964 to 1967. At the same time, he took over the position of group director and in this capacity ensured that youth games ran smoothly until the summer of 1987. The former district chairman of the Junge Union became CSU district chairman of Lower Bavaria in 1967, won the election to the mayor of Waldkirchen in 1969 and moved into the Bavarian state parliament in 1970, of which he was a member until 1978.
In 1993, Schmidhuber initially assumed responsibility as Lower Bavarian district chairman, rose to the board of the Bavarian Football Association and in 1998 assumed responsibility as BFV President at the head of the association until 2004. He then became treasurer of the German Football Association.
“Never lost sight of the base”
“The name Heinrich Schmidhuber stands for success. We bow to his life’s work,” said Kern. “But what distinguished Heinrich Schmidhuber above all is the fact that, despite his immense successes, he never forgot where he came from and never lost sight of the basics in football.”
Herbert Hainer, President of FC Bayern Munich, also paid tribute to Schmidhuber: He “shaped football in Bavaria and beyond the borders of the Free State with passion and expertise”.
For his services, Schmidhuber has received all major football honors from the Bavarian Football Association, the German Football Association and the Bavarian State Sports Association in recent years. In addition, he is a recipient of the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Sports Prize of the Bavarian Prime Minister and, since 2007, the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2004, Heinrich Schmidhuber was appointed the first honorary president of the Bavarian Football Association.
