Uli Hoeness, the long-serving president of German football club Bayern Munich, is planning to retire and hand over his duties to a former Adidas chief executive in November.
According to German daily newspaper Bild on Wednesday, Hoeness will not stand for re-election as club president and intends to also quit his role as supervisory board chairman.
Bild is Germany’s largest-selling newspaper Bild, and it has proved credible in the past.
According to the report, Hoeness intends to hand over his duties as president to former Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer, who is already a member of the club’s supervisory board.
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Bayern Munich was not immediately available for comment.
A World Cup and European Championship winner, Hoeness served the club as a player from 1970 to 1979 and took over as general manager, and later president, immediately after his career.
He is one of the wealthiest figures in German football.
His departure, along with Oliver Kahn’s planned take-over as general manager starting in 2022, will mark the beginning of a new era at the club.
In spite of the club’s hegemony in Germany in winning seven Bundesliga titles in a row, Bayern Munich have struggled to keep up at the international level.
After last winning the UEFA Champions League in 2013, Bayern Munich have failed to reach the final again.
Their elimination by eventual champions Liverpool in March in the round of 16 of the 2018/2019 season’s competition marked a recent low point.
Hoeness, aged 67, was re-elected in 2016 as club president after he had spent several months in prison for a multi-million euro tax evasion, a crime Hoeness admitted to German judges.(NAN)
