Thomas Berthold: AfD probably wants to nominate soccer world champions in the federal presidential election

The step that the AfD is planning, according to SPIEGEL information, is of a more symbolic nature: The party is expected to nominate former national player and soccer world champion Thomas Berthold as a candidate for the office of Federal President. The dpa news agency first reported on the plans.

An official consultation and decision on this is to follow on Saturday at a conference between the federal executive board and the state chairmen. It had previously been said that it would be a “man from the middle of society”.

This time the AfD is trying very hard to achieve unity. There were major upheavals in the AfD during the last nomination in 2022. The party had nominated Max Otte, but not everyone agreed with the personnel. Party leader Tino Chrupalla pushed through Otte's candidacy against his co-chair Jörg Meuthen. Chrupalla hoped to be able to fish for votes from the Union with Otte. However, Otte, as the former head of the Values ​​Union, was too controversial for the moderate Meuthen. In the end, Meuthen finally left the AfD.

Lateral thinking speaker Berthold

During his career, Thomas Berthold played for Eintracht Frankfurt, FC Bayern and VfB Stuttgart, among others. The defender played 62 international matches and in 1990 he became world champion in Italy with the German national team. After his career, he worked, among other things, as manager of Fortuna Düsseldorf and as an expert for several television stations and magazines.

During the corona pandemic, he acted as a critic of the measures taken at the time. These were “completely exaggerated,” he told the dpa in 2020. In a speech at a “Lateral Thinking 711” event in Stuttgart, Berthold explained, among other things, that his trust in the political leadership had reached “below zero.”