Reinhard Grindel, a Christian Democrat member of parliament and treasurer of the German FA (DFB), was earmarked yesterday to take over as president and steer the world’s largest soccer federation out of its current troubles.

“I personally support the candidature of Reinhard Grindel,” interim DFB president Rainer Koch said after meeting with the soccer representatives of Germany’s 21 state federations earlier in the day.

Koch and Reinhard Rauball, who have run the DFB since the resignation of Wolfgang Niersbach last week in relation to an ongoing World Cup 2006 bribery scandal, have ruled themselves out as candidates. Grindel is the only candidate so far and state federations control the majority of votes.

A member of parliament for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party, the 54-year-old Grindel, who became DFB treasurer in 2013, is largely unknown to German football fans.

A TV journalist-turned-politician, Grindel is the deputy head of the parliamentary committee on sport.

An election date has yet to be set but Koch told reporters it should happen “as soon as possible”.

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