DFB to ask Beckenbauer to run for UEFA boss

18 March 2005

HAMBURG – The German football federation (DFB) will formally ask national icon Franz Beckenbauer to run for the presidency of the European football ruling body, UEFA, the DFB board agreed on Friday.

The DFB board unanimously voted in favour of Beckenbauer, 59, running against Frenchman Michel Platini for the job once Lennart Johansson steps down, probably in 2007.

Beckenbauer was on Wednesday named the ideal candidate by Theo Zwanziger, the DFB co-president, in a move seemingly not co-ordinated with Beckenbauer and fellow co-president Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder.

“We can not waste the chance if we can get such a position. It is important as well for the years beyond (the World Cup in Germany in) 2006,” Zwanziger said.

Beckenbauer said earlier in the week he was undecided whether to run for the UEFA job.

Known as “Der Kaiser”, Beckenbauer is Germany’s most popular football figure.

He won the World Cup as a player in 1974 and as a coach in 1990. He is president of the World Cup 2006 organising committee and of Bayern Munich – with his fourth term ending in November 2006.

The UEFA president to succeed the Swede Johansson, who won’t run again, will likely be elected in 2007 instead of 2006, in order to have the vote in the same year as the world body FIFA. The UEFA executive board will deal with the issue in April.

Platini, France’s European champion playmaker from 1984 and organiser of the 1998 World Cup, announced his candidacy earlier this week.

DPA

Subject: German news