How Titanic once brought the 2006 World Cup to Germany

How Titanic brought the 2006 soccer World Cup to Germany is the title of an exhibition in the Caricatura department of the Historical Museum in Frankfurt am Main in 2006. It documents in words and pictures an action by the German satirical magazine Titanic on the eve of the soccer award World Cup 2006 .

backgrounds

On the evening of July 5, 2000, the day before the election of the organizing association by the members of the FIFA Executive Committee, the then editor-in-chief of Titanic Martin Sonneborn sent two bribe faxes one after the other to the Grand Hotel Dolder in Zurich , where the participants at the conference of the World Football Association were relegated. He asked the receptionist to send the letter, which had been declared an "extremely important message", to committee members Chung Mong-joon (South Korea), Jack Warner (Trinidad and Tobago), Ricardo Teixeira (Brazil), Abdullah Al-Dabal (Saudi Arabia), Ismail Bhamjee ( Botswana), Charles Dempsey (New Zealand) and Chuck Blazer (USA). The hotel clerk put the faxes in envelopes and immediately pushed them through to the recipients under the door of the room. There was no mention of envelopes on the phone: the hotel employee came up with the idea on her own, but with it, as Sonneborn later wrote in his book about these events, "added the finishing touches that finally gave the action its authenticity".

In the letter, the seven men were offered a small gift in English in case they voted for Germany's bid. Specifically, they were offered a gift basket with real Black Forest ham and a cuckoo clock . Here is the relevant passage from the original letter:

"[...] in this difficult situation, Germany would like to emphasize the urgency of its appeal to hold the World Cup 2006 in Germany. Let me come straight to the point: In appreciation of your support we would like to offer you a small gift for your vote in favor of Germany: A fine basket with specialties from the black forest, including some really good sausages, ham and - hold on to your seat - a wonderful KuKuClock! And a beer mug, too! Do we leave you any choice ???
We trust in the wisdom of your decision tomorrow, sincerely yours
Martin Sonneborn Secretary TDES (WM 2006 initiative) ”

As it turned out in retrospect, the satire campaign was possibly a stroke of luck for the German candidacy. New Zealand FIFA delegate Dempsey, who had traveled to Zurich on behalf of the Oceania Football Confederation to vote for South Africa, felt pressured for various reasons and abstained from voting. Exactly what induced Dempsey to abstain is controversial. In one of the few interviews that followed, he spoke of “pressure from influential European interest groups”, citing the main reason: “The main reason for my decision was that my colleagues whispered that I would take money from the South African delegation. I wanted to counter this by abstaining. ”The FIFA Executive Committee finally decided in favor of Germany's application with 12:11 votes. If the vote had been patted, the vote of FIFA President Sepp Blatter , whose sympathy for South Africa was known, would have counted twice.

However, Dempsey emphasized that, following the advice of UEFA President Johansson, he had decided not to vote for any other candidate after England had left the bidding race. He never repeated the statement made by Titanic and made live on CNN , “This final fax broke my neck”.

After the campaign became known and fears that the voting result could be challenged, the German Football Association reacted sharply and threatened the magazine with a claim for damages of 600 million Deutschmarks . As a result, Sonneborn issued a declaration of cease and desist not to exert any influence on FIFA and UEFA delegates for the rest of his life, as, according to Sonneborn, “would exceed 600 million marks the annual salary of a TITANIC editor”. The Bild newspaper then appeared with the headline "Böses Spiel gegen Franz" (meaning the then President of the German World Cup organizing committee Franz Beckenbauer ) and called on its readers to give their opinion to the Titanic editorial team, whose telephone number was also published . Recordings of these calls, in which the editors were insulted as " traitors to the fatherland " and " dirtiers " who belonged "in a constitutional state in a concentration camp ", were later published by Titanic on the CD Bild-readers insulting Titanic editors .

In the movie

Martin Sonneborn's book served director Nico Raschick in 2010 as the basis for his short film comedy “The Final Fax” for the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy , with Jan Dose as Martin Sonneborn and Frank Leo Schröder as Franz Beckenbauer .

literature

Martin Sonneborn: I did it for my country - How TITANIC once brought the 2006 World Cup to Germany: Protocol of a successful bribe . Bombus-Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-936261-37-7

Web links

Remarks

↑ Copy of the original fax . According to Sonneborn, TDES is an abbreviation for "Titanic - The definitive satirical magazine."

↑ What Dempsey said about the allegations. In: 20 minutes from July 16, 2012

↑ Information on "The Final Fax" on ARTE ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2

[1] Copy of the original fax . According to Sonneborn, TDES is an abbreviation for "Titanic - The definitive satirical magazine."

[2] What Dempsey said about the allegations. In: 20 minutes from July 16, 2012