1971 Bundesliga scandal

The Bundesliga scandal (der Bundesliga-Skandal) refers to the

.

History

The manipulation of games was revealed when the president of

The chief prosecutor of the DFB, Hans Kindermann, found out that, amongst others, the 17 April 1971 game between FC Schalke and Arminia Bielefeld that ended 0–1, had been "sold" (or thrown) by Schalke's players and the board of directors. Afterwards, many of the Schalke players were banned for long periods, while several lifetime bans were imposed.

The players maintained their innocence, and even swore an oath to that, but the oath was eventually proven to be false. Schalke's rivals, especially from the Ruhr, still occasionally refer to Schalke as FC Meineid (German for "FC Perjury").

Fifty-two players, two managers and six club functionaries were punished. Also, Bielefeld and Offenbach had their license to participate in the

, but were punished by automatic relegation after that season, officially receiving zero points for each game independently of their actual record.

Manipulated games

• 17 April 1971: Schalke vs Bielefeld, 0–1
• 5 May 1971: Köln vs Essen, 3–2
• 8 May 1971: Offenbach vs Oberhausen, 3–2
• 22 May 1971: Köln vs Oberhausen, 2–4; Duisburg vs Bielefeld, 4–1
• 29 May 1971: Bielefeld vs Stuttgart, 1–0; Offenbach vs Frankfurt, 0–2
• 5 June 1971: Braunschweig vs Oberhausen, 1–1^*; Hertha BSC vs Bielefeld, 0–1; Köln vs Offenbach, 4–2

^*Strictly speaking, the game was not manipulated, but the Braunschweig players were promised, and given, for winning this game an additional bonus by a third party, which was illegal.

Punished participants

Players

• Hertha BSC: Tasso Wild, Bernd Patzke, Jürgen Rumor, Laszlo Gergely, Volkmar Groß, Peter Enders, Wolfgang Gayer, Arno Steffenhagen, Karl-Heinz Ferschl, Hans-Jürgen Sperlich, Franz Brungs, Jürgen Weber, Michael Kellner, Uwe Witt, and Zoltán Varga.
• VfB Stuttgart: Hans Arnold, Hartmut Weiß, and Hans Eisele.
• FC Schalke 04: Klaus Fichtel, Hans-Jürgen Wittkamp, Rolf Rüssmann, Herbert Lütkebohmert, Manfred Pohlschmidt, Hans Pirkner, Jürgen Sobieray, Klaus Fischer, Reinhard Libuda, Dieter Burdenski, Klaus Senger, Jürgen Galbierz, and Heinz van Haaren.
• Waldemar Slomiany and Jürgen Neumann
  .
• MSV Duisburg: Volker Danner and Gerhard Kentschke.
• Eintracht Braunschweig: Lothar Ulsaß, Horst Wolter, Wolfgang Grzyb, Peter Kaack, Franz Merkhoffer, Bernd Gersdorff, Klaus Gerwien, Rainer Skrotzki, Eberhard Haun, Jaro Deppe, Dietmar Erler, Friedhelm Haebermann, Joachim Bäse, Michael Polywka, and Burkhardt Öller.

Coaches

• Oberhausen: Egon Piechaczek and Günter Brocker

Club officials

• Oberhausen: Peter Maaßen
• Hertha BSC: Wolfgang Holst
• Offenbach: Horst-Gregorio Canellas, Friedrich Mann, Fritz Koch, and Waldemar Klein.

See also

• Bundesliga scandal (1965)
• Bundesliga scandal (2005)

References

1. ISBN 0-9540134-5-X
   .

External links

• Der Bundesliga-Skandal 1971: Das Ende der Unschuld (in German)
• Der Bundesliga-Skandal vor 34 Jahren (in German)
• Der Bundesligaskandal 1971 (in German)