German football legend Franz Beckenbauer dies aged 78
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suffering from health problems and lived mostly withdrawn from the public eye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.
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.
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