The Bundesliga scandal of 1965 grew out of the failure of the
German Football Association
The German Football Association (german: Deutscher Fußball-Bund ; DFB ) is the governing body of football in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and is in charge of t ...
(''Deutsche Fußball-Bund'', DFB) to fully embrace paid professionalism, an aversion rooted in the broader history of sport in the country. Many clubs circumvented the strict financial limits then in place in German football, and it became common practice for clubs to make payments to players or their agents in excess of the limits set by the DFB in an attempt to gain a competitive edge. In addition, some clubs paid players from competing sides to underperform in key matches.
The scandal came to light in February 1965, when the DFB's auditor found discrepancies in the accounts of the
Hertha Berlin
Hertha, Berliner Sport-Club e. V., commonly known as Hertha BSC (), and sometimes referred to as Hertha Berlin, Hertha BSC Berlin, or simply Hertha, is a German professional football club based in the locality of Westend (Berlin), Westend of the ...
club that were quickly identified as illegal player payments. Hertha's position in the economic rough and tumble of German football was weakened by the city of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
's dangerous political situation as an isolated enclave in the middle of the
Soviet-occupied East Germany during the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. Many players did not wish to play in Berlin, and the club was forced into paying premiums beyond even what other teams were already illegally paying. Despite evidence of widespread problems, only Hertha was sanctioned, and the club was relegated from the top-flight Bundesliga to the second division Regionalliga Berlin.
For political reasons, the DFB wished to maintain Berlin's representation within the Bundesliga. In the competition that had been held for promotion to the Bundesliga,
Tennis Borussia Berlin
Tennis Borussia Berlin is a German football club based in the locality of Westend in Berlin.
History
The team was founded in 1902 as ''Berliner Tennis- und Ping-Pong-Gesellschaft Borussia'' taking its name from its origins as a tennis and t ...
had finished at the bottom of their group behind
Bayern Munich
Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...
,
1. FC Saarbrücken, and
Alemannia Aachen
Alemannia Aachen () or ATSV Alemannia 1900 is a football in Germany, German football club from the western city of Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia. A long term fixture of the country's 2. Bundesliga, second division, ''Alemannia'' enjoyed a three- ...
and so could not be considered for promotion before those clubs. The DFB turned to
Spandauer SV
Spandauer SV was a German football club from Berlin.
History
Early years
The capital city was one of the earliest centres of German football and was home to 1. Spandauer Fußballklub Triton, formed on 24 May 1894, and Sportclub Germania S ...
, who had finished second in the Regionalliga Berlin, with an offer of promotion that the club refused.
Tasmania 1900 Berlin
SC Tasmania 1900 Berlin was a German football club based in the Berlin district of Neukölln.
History
The club was founded as ''Rixdorfer TuFC Tasmania 1900'' on 2 June 1900. It is believed the founders of the club were about to migrate to ...
, the third-place finisher and the previous season's champion, was approached next and accepted promotion.
This led to objections from
Karlsruher SC
Karlsruher SC is a German association football club, based in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg that currently plays in the 2. Bundesliga, the second tier of German football. Domestically, the club was crowned German champion in 1909, and won the D ...
and
FC Schalke 04
Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as FC Schalke 04 (), Schalke 04 (), or abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional German football and multi-sports club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhi ...
, who had been relegated but felt that they still had a better claim to the spot opened by the relegation of Hertha than any of the Berlin-based sides from the Regionalliga. To mollify these clubs, the Bundesliga was expanded from 16 to 18 clubs the following season and the two sides maintained their places in first division competition.
As for the overmatched Tasmania side, their single season in the top flight was the worst-ever season in Bundesliga history, setting records for futility that still stand.
In response to the underlying economic issues the DFB made only a token response, raising the previous limits on transfer fees and player salaries, but not by enough to make the Bundesliga a truly professional league in the broader European context. This laid the groundwork for a second
similar scandal some six years later.
References
*
Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger (2002). Tor! The Story of German Football. WSC Books
Das deutsche Fußball-Archivhistorical German domestic league tables (in German)
{{1964–65 in German football
Bundesliga
Association football controversies
Scandal
A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. Th ...