(ANSA-AFP) - BERLIN, 08 GEN - Legend Franz Beckenbauer, who
left a unique imprint on German football as player, captain and
coach, has died at the age of 78, the German football
association said Monday. "Franz Beckenbauer was definitely the
biggest German footballer of all time, and above all one of the
greatest men who I have known," said DFB vice president
Hans-Joachim Watzke. Beckenbauer, one of only three men to win
the World Cup as player and as a coach, passed away on Sunday,
the DFB said.
Former captain of the German team in the 1970s, Beckenbauer
had in the last years been suffering from health problems and
lived mostly withdrawn from the public eye in Salzburg, just
across from the German border. Known in football-obsessed
Germany as 'the Kaiser' meaning 'the Emperor', Beckenbauer
played a central role in some of the country's greatest sporting
achievements, but his legacy was later tarnished for his
involvement in scandals surrounding Germany's successful bid to
host the 2006 World Cup.
- Commanding figure - Born in Munich in 1945, Beckenbauer
helped establish Bayern as his country's strongest club.
Alongside Mario Zagallo -- who died aged 92 on Friday -- and
Didier Deschamps, Beckenbauer is one of only three men to have
won the World Cup as both a player and a manager. He captained
West Germany to the 1974 World Cup title on home soil when they
beat the Netherlands 2-1 in the Munich final, then managed the
team that beat Argentina 1-0 in Rome to lift the trophy at
Italia 90. Beckenbauer, a commanding figure on and off the
pitch, was named European footballer of the year in both 1972
and 1976.
He made 424 appearances in the Bundesliga, scoring 44 goals,
including in a 13-year spell for Bayern, before joining Hamburg
and New York Cosmos, where he finished his playing career in
1983. Beckenbauer had stints as manager in club football at both
Bayern and Marseille, winning the French league title in 1991
and the Bundesliga in 1994. In 1996, he stopped coaching and his
role as president of Bayern led to a place on the Executive
Committee with football's governing body FIFA. Off the field,
Beckenbauer led Germany's successful bid to host the 2006 World
Cup, a successful tournament that is still nostalgically
referred to in Germany as "das Sommermaerchen" -- 'The summer
fairytale'.
However, the story turned sour in October 2015 when Spiegel
broke a cash-for-votes scandal story. The magazine alleged that,
in 2000, the German Football Association (DFB) had bought the
votes of four Asian members of FIFA's 24-strong executive
committee to secure the hosting of the 2006 World Cup finals.
Beckenbauer had maintained his innocence. Beckenbauer had heart
surgery in 2016 and again in 2017, when worrying news about his
ill health began to emerge. At the beginning of January 2023,
the football icon renounced his presence at the funeral of Pele.
A few months later in August, he had missed the traditional
annual gathering of Germany's 1990 world champions. At each of
these occasions, health had been cited as a reason. The last
time he appeared at Bayern Munich's Allianz Arena was in August
2022, when he attended a match of Bayern Munich against Borussia
Moenchengladbach. (sid/hmn/sr/nr) (ANSA-AFP).
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