By Andrew Warshaw
April 20 – Theo Zwanziger, the controversial former German FA boss and FIFA executive committee member, has won the legal case brought against him by the Qatar Football Association for describing the Gulf state’s right to host the 2022 World Cup as a “cancer on world football”.
The 70-year-old has long been an outspoken critic of the decision to award Qatar the tournament and the comments in question were made to a German public broadcast radio station in June last year, after which the QFA sued Zwanziger for a nominal sum of €100,000 claiming he had showed collective disrespect and should be banned from repeating such words since they amounted to “unacceptable slander and vilification”.
Zwanziger argued his remarks were directed not against a person or Qatari institution, but FIFA’s system of awarding the 2022 World Cup and the choice of Qatar per se. Dusseldorf’s regional court upheld that argument, ruling that while the comments were indeed offensive, Zwanziger was not obliged under German law to be blocked from repeating them.
In throwing out the Qataris’ lawsuit, the presiding judge said that while Zwanziger’s remarks were an “insulting evaluation”, they were covered by freedom of speech.
The case only served to highlight the Qatar’s sensitivity over hosting the World Cup and the fact that freedom of speech is interpreted differently in different parts of the world.
Zwanziger, a trained lawyer who stepped down as German Football Association (DFB) president in 2012, was not in court to hear the decision but was quick to use the verdict to further dig the knife into the process that led to Qatar being selected, using more of the same colourful language.
“It was a clear criticism that should …be possible when it comes to a scandal of such dimensions,” he told SID.
“The country is half the size of (the German state of) Hessen, has incredible heat, travel around the region is not easy and human rights are trampled on.
“To plan to hold the World Cup there is a joke.”
“I am disappointed that all officials, including the DFB, accept the decision as god given,” he said.
The QFA now has one month to appeal the judgement. Zwanziger, meanwhile, is due back in court on April 27 as former German international Guenter Netzer has also brought a lawsuit against him linked to the scandal behind Germany’s successful bid to host the 2006 World Cup.
German football has been rocked by allegations, first revealed by Der Spiegel last October, that the DFB used a slush fund to buy votes to secure the right to host the 2006 finals.
Netzer has taken legal action over comments Zwanziger made to Spiegel when he claimed Netzer had told him at a meeting in Zurich in 2012 that the votes of the four Asian members of FIFA’s executive committee were bought.
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