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Obituaries
SportFootball

Tributes pour in for Franz Beckenbauer after German football legend dies age 78

  • Beckenbauer, one of only three men to win the World Cup as player and as a coach, died on Sunday, the German football association said
  • Uefa hailed Beckenbauer as ‘one of European football’s greatest sons’; the English Premier League described him as the ‘most beautiful of footballers’

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Franz Beckenbauer presents the golden football for the 2006 World Cup final in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany in April 2006. Photo: dpa via AP
Agence France-Presse

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 (DFB) said on Monday.

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“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, died on Sunday, the DFB said.

Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer, right, and Johan Cruyff of the Netherlands during the Fifa 1974 World Cup final. Beckenbauer died on Monday aged 78. Photo: EPA-EFE
Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer, right, and Johan Cruyff of the Netherlands during the Fifa 1974 World Cup final. Beckenbauer died on Monday aged 78. Photo: EPA-EFE
Tributes poured in for the football icon, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and former German captain Lothar Matthaeus alike saying “we will miss him”.
Uefa hailed Beckenbauer as “one of European football’s greatest sons” who “shaped German football like no other”, while the English Premier League described him as the “most beautiful of footballers who won it all with grace and charm”.

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of the German team in the 1970s, Beckenbauer had in the last years been suffering from health problems and lived mostly withdrawn from the public eye in Salzburg in Austria, just across from the German border.

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Known in football-mad 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.

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