Dietrich shaped the league
Pioneer of women’s football leaves his sport
10/13/2022 6:32 p.m
Siegfried Dietrich has been passionate about women’s football for 30 years. But now the sports director of Eintracht Frankfurt is retiring. His health comes first, he had to take a break last year. It’s actually impossible to imagine the scene without him.
Telephone calls with Siegfried Dietrich could sometimes take a little longer. “You, I have something for you,” the busy manager usually began the conversation, during which he praised a new signing for minutes, advertised a game – or philosophized about women’s football in general. That’s enough of that.
The women’s football veteran is leaving his sport after 30 years. The 65-year-old, whose trademark has always been the glasses placed far forward on his nose, is retiring with immediate effect for health reasons and will finally retire at the end of the year as general representative of the Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt.
He had “received increased signals from my body that reminded me of my health situation from a year and a half ago,” said Dietrich: “In this context, I increasingly feel that I am currently only able to fulfill my own aspiration to pursue my various tasks with at least 100 percent difficult to do justice to. All reasons that make it necessary to react to my health situation, which is unfortunately not always stable, this time really early, appropriately and sustainably.”
Dietrich had already taken four months off for health reasons last year, and he has now terminated his contract, which ran until June 2023. His tasks will be temporarily taken over by coach Niko Arnautis and, according to Eintracht, distributed “by subject within the organization”.
Frankfurt as international flagship
“Of course, the exit at the current stage of development of German and European professional women’s football – in which there are so many challenges ahead after the impact of the European Championship and for which we have been able to push so much together in recent years – is particularly bitter and painful for me “, said Dietrich: “But anything but a consistent and timely decision would not be expedient for all sides and the further planning of the important projects. I only see very good chances if I take myself completely out and gain distance for a longer period of time not to experience the situation of 2021 again and to get back on track in the best possible way in terms of health.”
Dietrich is one of the best-known and most successful personalities in women’s football in Germany and Europe. Under his leadership, 1. FFC Frankfurt, founded from SG Praunheim, developed into an international flagship in the 1990s and early 2000s.
With seven championship titles, nine DFB Cup victories and four Champions League victories in 22 years, Dietrich also made a significant contribution as manager and investor to FFC becoming the most successful women’s club in Germany and for more than a decade in Europe. The German World Cup titles in 2003 and 2007 would hardly have been possible without the then FFC players like Birgit Prinz, Nia Künzer, Renate Lingor and Steffi Jones.
In addition, Dietrich has also been involved in various committees of the German Football Association (DFB) since 1993. It was not until March 2022 that he was re-elected as chairman of the DFB Women’s Bundesliga Committee. Dietrich had previously completed the merger of the FFC with Eintracht in 2020.