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DFB boss Grindel to run for UEFA Executive Committee seat

Chuck Penfold dpa
December 2, 2016

The German football association has announced that its president will seek election to the UEFA Executive Committee. If successful, he would take the seat nominally occupied by his predecessor Wolfgang Niersbach.

https://p.dw.com/p/2Tenj
Deutschland | Reinhard Grindel präsentitert das UEFA Euro 2020 Logo
Image: Getty Images/Bongarts/A. Beier

The DFB (German football association) announced following a meeting  in the Bavarian town of Grassau on Friday that it had voted unanimously to nominate its president, Reinhard Grindel, as a candidate for a place on the Executive Committee of the sport's European governing body(UEFA).

"It is important that Germany also be represented on the UEFA Executive Committee in the future" German Football League (DFL) President Reinhard Rauball said.  "The DFL therefore welcomes the fact that Reinhard Grindel is prepared to take on responsibility on the European stage and to do so in the interests of German football."

"As its president, Reinhard Grindel has brought in important measures to increase transparency and good governance at the DFB and will advocate the same for UEFA," Rainer Koch, the DFB's first vice president said.

If elected at the next UEFA Congress in Helsinki on April 5, Grindel will take the seat of his predecessor as DFB president, Wolfgang Niersbach, who resigned last year over the scandal surrounding a dubious payment in connection with Germany's successful bid to host the 2006 World Cup. In July, FIFA handed Niersbach a one-year ban from all football related activitiesover the affair. Niersbach, who denies any wrongdoing, has appealed the ban.