Joschi Walter

Josef "Joschi" Walter (born October 27, 1925 , † March 16, 1992 ) was an Austrian football player and football official . For several decades he held management positions at FK Austria Wien and was considered Mister Austria .

Player career

Walter began his football career in the youth club of the Wiener Sport-Club , where he made his debut in the top division in October 1947. After only three appearances in the runner row, he moved to First Vienna FC . There, however, he also remained a squad complementary player and came in five seasons just 15 missions in the championship, but belonged to the successful team that won the championship title in the 1954/55 season . He finally played the last games of his active career in 1955 for 1. Simmeringer SC .

National team

In 1952 the Austrian Football Association sent an amateur team to the Olympic Games in Helsinki. Joschi Walter was appointed to this selection by coach Viktor Hierländer and played both games at the tournament, where the Austrians were eliminated 3-1 against Sweden after a 4: 3 win against Finland in the quarter- finals. Overall, Walter came on four missions for the amateur national team.

Functionary career

Walter began a successful career as a car dealer and in 1959 was elected Vice President of the management team of Wiener Austria. Since the presidential post was vacant at that time, Walter quickly became the driving force behind the Violets and began to structure the association according to economic principles. The work soon bore fruit and the club won three championship titles in a row from 1961 to 1963. At the same time, Walter also worked out a reform plan to professionalize Austrian football.

In 1963 he withdrew from Austria for a short time, but was brought back to football in March 1964 when he was surprisingly appointed to succeed Karl Decker as head of the national team . With Béla Guttmann as coach, he supervised the selection, but also continued to work on his plans to reform and professionalize Austrian football, which became known as the 10-point program . Since his ideas were only partially accepted by the general meeting of the ÖFB, Walter resigned from his position in October 1964. Although individual points of his plan were implemented in 1965, Walter distanced himself from this reform.

He returned to the management of Austria, where he was able to win an industrialist Manfred Mautner Markhof junior as president and sponsor for the club and in 1967 he was the first Austrian club to introduce dress sponsorship when the team was promoting the Schwechat brewery . After a planned merger with Admira had failed, Walter withdrew briefly, but was soon back in management. He was significantly involved in the realization of the game community with the soccer section of the Vienna AC and was able to win the Austria Tabakwerke as a sponsor in 1977 .

After that, Walter retired from the management of the club, but two years later he moved back to the board in 1979 and managed the club successfully in both economic and sporting terms in the 1980s. In 1990 he was finally elected president, which he remained until his death.

ÖFB international matches under team boss Josef Walter, together with Béla Guttmann

Legend

• H = home game
• A = away game
• green background color = victory of Austria
• yellow background color = tie
• red background color = defeat

Games	Victories	draw	Defeats	Gates	TD
5	3	1	1	6: 5	+1

No.	date	Result	opponent		venue	occasion	comment
323	04/12/1964	1: 1	Netherlands	A.	Amsterdam ( NED )
324	05/03/1964	1-0	Hungary	H	Vienna
325	05/14/1964	0: 2	Uruguay	H	Vienna
326	09/27/1964	3: 2	Yugoslavia	H	Vienna
327	10/11/1964	1-0	Soviet Union	H	Vienna

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Joseph Walter ÖFB team boss . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 7, 1964, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).