Horst-Gregorio Canellas (6 June 1921 – 23 July 1999) was a German entrepreneur and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

official. Canellas is best known for his role in breaking the 1971 Bundesliga scandal. He was also a hostage on the hijacked German

Lufthansa Flight 181 Lufthansa Flight 181 was a Boeing 737-230C jetliner (reg. D-ABCE) named the ''Landshut'' that was hijacked on the afternoon of 13 October 1977 by four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who called themselves Commando ...

in 1977.

Biography

Canellas, son of a Spanish father and a German mother, was born in

Plauen Plauen (; Czech language, Czech: ''Plavno'') is, with around 65,000 inhabitants, the fifth-largest city of Saxony, Germany after Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Zwickau, the second-largest city of the Vogtland after Gera, as well as the larges ...

, Saxony, in 1921. After the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he spent some time in Spain and then moved to

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...

and adopted German citizenship. He became the managing director of a fruit importer in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

. In 1964 Canellas became chairman of

Kickers Offenbach Offenbacher Kickers, also known as Kickers Offenbach, is a German association football club in Offenbach am Main, Hesse. The club was founded on 27 May 1901 in the Rheinischer Hof restaurant by footballers who had left established local clubs in ...

, a club then playing in the second division Regionalliga Süd. Offenbach won promotion to the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

in 1968 and 1970 but suffered immediate relegation on both occasions. The day after the end of the

1970–71 Bundesliga The 1970–71 Bundesliga was the eighth season of the Bundesliga, West Germany's premier football league. It began on 15 August 1970 and ended on 5 June 1971. Borussia Mönchengladbach were the defending champions. Competition modus Every team p ...

season Canellas invited officials 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 ...

and the press to his 50th birthday celebration. It was there that he broke the 1971 Bundesliga scandal by replaying voice recordings he had made of attempts to manipulate Bundesliga games through bribes. Earlier attempts to inform the German Association had been ignored by the latter. Canellas stepped down immediately as chairman of Kickers Offenbach and was initially banned for life from holding any office at a German football club but this ban was lifted in 1976. The following scandal took 18-months to clear up and saw 52 players and two managers banned and fined. Canellas retired from his business in 1974. On a flight from

Mallorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

to Frankfurt in 1977 the plane he was on,

, was hijacked by members of the PLO and the hostages were later freed by the German counter-terrorism unit

GSG 9 , formerly (), is the police tactical unit of the German Federal Police ''(Bundespolizei (Germany), Bundespolizei)''. The state police (''Landespolizei'') maintain their own tactical units known as the ''Special Deployment Commando, Spezialein ...

Mogadishu Mogadishu (, also ; so, Muqdisho or ; ar, مقديشو ; it, Mogadiscio ), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port ...

. Canellas died of lung cancer after a long illness in Offenbach in 1999.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Canellas, Horst 1921 births 1999 deaths People from Offenbach am Main German people of Spanish descent German football chairmen and investors German whistleblowers German people taken hostage Deaths from lung cancer Kickers Offenbach Bundesliga scandal (1971) Hijacking survivors German expatriates in Spain