The Frankfurt regional court has refused to stop the “Summer Fairy Tale” trial against two of three defendants in exchange for paying a fine. This was reported by the “Zeit Online” portal on Wednesday. The court confirmed the decision and the date of the first day of the trial on March 4th to the German Press Agency (dpa).
According to the report, the former president of the German Football Association (DFB), Wolfgang Niersbach, and the then DFB general secretary Horst R. Schmidt are said to have agreed on the fine with the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office. However, this agreement failed due to the court’s approval.
The third defendant, former DFB President Theo Zwanziger, was excluded from the settlement attempts, the article said. According to current planning, the last day of negotiations would be July 11th. This would mean that the process would go into the middle of the home European Championship (June 14th to July 14th). The “Bild” newspaper also reported on agreements with the defendants on Wednesday.
In May last year, the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court restarted the proceedings against the trio that had previously been discontinued by the regional court at the end of October 2022. The Higher Regional Court announced at the time that the district court’s dismissal decision had been revoked and the proceedings had to be continued.
Timo Frasch, Munich Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 25 Christoph Becker Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 4 Michael Horeni, Berlin Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 3
The public prosecutor’s office accuses Niersbach, Zwanziger and Schmidt of tax evasion in a particularly serious case. The defendants have always rejected this. The trial revolves around an ominous payment from 2005 of 6.7 million euros for a gala at the 2006 World Cup, which never took place.
