Reinhard Grindel has resigned as from his position as DFB president following allegations of undeclared earnings, which was uncovered by German magazine Der Spiegel, and for accepting a €6,000 watch given by Ukrainian businessman and Uefa vice-president Grigoriy Surkis.
In a statement, Grindel said: “I would like to apologise for the fact that my accepting of a watch seems to have confirmed prejudices against people in administrative positions in football. Everyone who knows me knows that I am not avaricious and that I have been working on compliance matters for years. Since the weekend, I have known the value of the watch at €6000, so I approached our general secretary and our compliance committee yesterday morning to discuss the situation.
“Mr. Surkis had no financial interests in the DFB. He had never asked me for any kind of support before, nor did he ask for any after. It was also clear by that point that he would not be running for another position on the UEFA committee, of which he is now no longer a member. I see no conflict of interests. For me, this was nothing more than a private gift, with no connection to the Ukrainian association or a commercial company.”
