Prosecutors investigate German football body over Adidas donations

Public prosecutors are again investigating the German Football Federation (DFB) for potential tax evasion, their office in Frankfurt confirmed to dpa on Thursday.

The issue, as first reported by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Bild newspaper relates to the taxation of donations such as balls, shirts and boots made by DFB sponsor Adidas 2015-2020.

Investigators visited the Adidas headquarters in Herzogenaurach on Wednesday.

"It did not come to a search, documents were handed over voluntarily," prosecutor Nadja Niesen said without providing more details.

Adidas said it could "confirm" cooperation with authorities over a tax case "not against Adidas itself, rather a third party."

Accusations of impropriety in DFB taxes in relation to Adidas were first made known in January. The DFB confirmed that as a precautionary measure, "a subsequent notification on the basis of a maximum assessment was made to the tax office."

This was done after a new system introduced to prevent tax errors had "highlighted a possible source of a mistake," it said.

In October 2020 several DFB officials were raided in relation to a separate tax matter relating to advertising boards at national team games 2014-2015. The DFB was alleged to have avoided 4.7 million euros (5.3 million dollars) in taxes, investigators said.

But at the end of October this year, the public prosecutor's office halted proceedings against DFB interim boss Rainer Koch, who is also on the executive committee of European football governing body UEFA.

That followed the dropping of proceedings against former DFB top officials Reinhard Rauball and Helmut Sandrock. A total of six people had been accused of involvement in tax evasion in particularly serious cases.

Koch, together with Peter Peters, is interim boss of the DFB after previous president Fritz Keller stepped down. A new president will be elected March 11 in Frankfurt with Koch having said he will not stand for the role.