Keir Radnedge The rise and fall of Der Kaiser
This is a cautionary tale about Franz Beckenbauer and about why retired superstars should think long and hard before staking their status and image on power games off the pitch.
In some ways Beckenbauer shares a legacy with the late Diego Maradona. First viewing suggests few points of connection. They were superstars in different, succeeding eras and their only competitive collisions were the 1986 and 1990 World Cup finals. Maradona was captain of Argentina, Beckenbauer coach of West Germany.
Yet both present the confusion of a great playing legacy entangled with a subsequent life less than bright.
Throughout most of the 20th century, footballers were singledimension individuals who morphed either into management or vanished altogether once their playing days were done. Our media revolution has changed that: ex-players may now maintain a public profile through broadcasting, while a tiny handful have risked image and status in the snake pit of sports politics.
Here the paths of Beckenbauer and Maradona diverged. Maradona continued, until his sad recent death, to garner headlines more via a chaotic personal life than erratic dabbles in management. As for Beckenbauer, his reputation has been tarnished by flying too close to FIFA’s corrupt Blatter-era and its World Cup bidding scandals.
As for Beckenbauer, his reputation has been tarnished by flying too close to FIFA’s corrupt Blatter-era and its World Cup bidding scandals
Beckenbauer’s fall from grace may appear recent, yet the clean, classy image of a great player turned great ambassador had been compromised, beyond public sight, for far longer.
He glided into the collective consciousness of international football at the 1966 World Cup, stepping gazelle-like over despairing tackles to score two of West Germany’s goals in their opening 5-1 win over
Switzerland. Coming six months after Beckenbauer’s debut, this was the startling start of a new era.
West Germany’s unified Bundesliga, bringing full-time professionalism in its wake, had begun three years earlier. Beckenbauer’s Bayern Munich were not even among the original 16 clubs and had to earn promotion in 1965.
Over the next decade Bayern, inspired by the creative brilliance of Beckenbauer and the goals of Gerd Muller, swept up four league titles, four cups, three European Champions Cups in succession, one Cup Winners’ Cup and one World Club Cup.
West Germany’s national team, with the travelling room-mates at their heart, won the 1974 World Cup, were runners-up in 1966 and third in 1970, and carried off the Euros in 1972. By then Beckenbauer had eased back from midfield to a commanding role as a roving, scheming sweeper.
The oft-used term was misleading. In Italy the “free man” had been the ultra-defensive patrolling warily and ruthlessly behind all his team-mates, goalkeeper apart.
Beckenbauer’s interpretation was a revolution. His influence was felt not only on the pitch but off it. In the 1974 World Cup it was his insistence on changes after the 1-0 defeat to East Germany – including dropping Bayern team-mate Uli Hoeness – that sparked an ultimately triumphant revival.
His influence at Bayern was unique because Robert Schwan, his own personal manager, was also Bayern general manager. It was a conflict of interest never challenged because results were all-important.
Beckenbauer’s perks and private life were hidden from the headlines. Of course, it helped that he enjoyed
the protection of a regular column in Bild Zeitung, which was only too happy to maintain exclusive access to the national team captain.
The nation was later shocked by his embrace of a big contract to play alongside Pele at New York Cosmos, but welcomed him back three years later for one last hurrah with Hamburg. The Midas touch never deserted him: three NASL titles with Cosmos and a last Bundesliga with Hamburg.
Then it was home to retirement – but never out of the limelight.
Beckenbauer’s criticism of national coach Jupp Derwall prompted the DFB to say: “If you can do better, do it.” So he did: runners-up at World Cup 1986 and winners in 1990; the first man to win the ultimate prize as captain and then coach.
Then came a first hint that perhaps Beckenbauer was not infallible. He accepted the blandishments of Bernard Tapie, the French populist businessman-turned-politician to become coach of Marseille. He failed to do his homework either on the club set-up or on Tapie. The team stumbled. Tapie turned to the veteran Belgian, Raymond Goethals, to turn results around. Beckenbauer remained on the payroll but only until the summer of 1991 when Tapie’s match-fixing propensities exploded on the game.
Somehow Beckenbauer escaped being tainted by the French connection. He returned home to become president of Bayern, then appointed himself coach to guide them to the league title in 1994 and the UEFA Cup in 1996. Two more years saw him appointed vice-president of the DFB before joining the all-powerful executive committees of UEFA and FIFA.
Now he was tipped for football’s top job – president of FIFA. But instead he preferred to stay home and enhance his image further by heading up Germany’s successful bid to stage the 2006 World Cup. Family and friends urged him to quit while he was ahead; but in vain.
December 2, 2010, was the day it all began to go wrong. Beckenbauer’s
FIFA voting role entangled him in the Russia and Qatar World Cup awards. Six months later he quit as lurid tales circulated around the World Cup votes.
FIFA appointed American attorney Michael Garcia to investigate. He expanded his purview to include the 2006 award to Germany after the discovery that a payment of $250,000 was made by marketing partner ISL to an unidentified individual one day before Germany landed the finals.
Beckenbauer refused to answer Garcia’s questions, was banned from football for 90 days and had to stay away from World Cup 2014. But worse was to come. In October 2015 he found himself at the centre of a bid bribes scandal.
Magazine Der Spiegel revealed that the German 2006 bidding committee set up a slush fund financed to the tune of 10.3m Swiss Francs by Robert Louis-Dreyfus who was then chief executive of long-time FIFA, German federation and Bayern sponsor Adidas. The cash, according to Der Spiegel, “was used to secure the four votes belonging to Asian representatives on the FIFA executive committee…in casting their ballots for the tournament to be awarded to Germany.”
All this led to Beckenbauer and three DFB colleagues being subjected to both a FIFA ethics inquiry and a Swiss criminal investigation. The trial collapsed last spring but Beckenbauer was never charged on grounds of ill health. He subsequently retreated from public life, quit his TV pundit role and cancelled his 34-year column with Bild.
So, as the shadows of retirement enfold him, which Franz Beckenbauer will the game remember: the incomparable player or the injudicious director?
Here the Maradona comparison comes in handy. For all the mangled state of his private life, the images of Maradona which shine the brightest remain those of the ball-juggling kid, the inspirational displays for Napoli and the wondergoal against England in 1986. All etched into the collective memory of not only football fans but a wider world.
Similarly for Beckenbauer: in the film vaults of sporting immortality are the fabulous images of the youngster trading steps with Bobby Charlton in 1966, defying a dislocated shoulder in the 1970 semi-final thriller against Italy, the first club captain to raise the European Cup three years in a row and Der Kaiser who hoisted the World Cup in 1974.
Let’s face it, dull old photographs of a committee room simply cannot compare.