Former German professional football player and manager & sports legend Franz Beckenbauer has died at the age of 78. Nicknamed “Der Kaiser” (‘The Emperor’), Beckenbauer was a versatile player who started out as a midfielder, but made his name as a central defender. He is often credited as having invented the role of the modern sweeper (libero). With success at club and international level, he is one of nine players to have won the FIFA World Cup, the European Champions Cup, and the Ballon d’Or. Twice named  European Footballer of the Year, Beckenbauer appeared 103 times for West Germany, playing in three FIFA World Cups and two European Championships.

He is one of three men, along with Brazil’s Mário Zagallo and France’s Didier Deschamps, to have won the World Cup as a player and as a manager; he lifted the World Cup trophy as captain in 1974, and repeated the feat as a manager in 1990. He was the first captain to lift the World Cup and European Championship at the international level and the European Cup at the club level. He was named in the World Team of the 20th Century in 1998, the FIFA World Cup Dream Team in 2002, the Ballon d’Or Dream Team in 2020, and in 2004 was listed in the FIFA 100 of the world’s greatest living players.

At club level with Bayern Munich, Beckenbauer won the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1967 and three consecutive European Cups from 1974 to 1976. The latter feat made him the first player to win three European Cups as captain of his club. He became team manager and later president of Bayern Munich. After two spells with the New York Cosmos he was inducted into the U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame. Beckenbauer led Germany’s successful bid to host the 2006 FIFA World Cup and chaired the organizing committee. He worked as a pundit for Sky Germany, and for 34 years as a columnist for the tabloid Bild, both until 2016.

Beckenbauer was married three times and had five children, one of whom, Stephan, was a professional footballer, who died after a long illness on 31 July 2015, at the age of 46. Stephan’s son Luca is also a professional footballer, playing for SV Wacker Burghausen in the Regionalliga Bayern. In 2016 and 2017, Beckenbauer had cardiac surgery twice. He also had an artificial hip inserted in 2018. Beckenbauer died on 7 January 2024, at the age of 78, as announced by his family in a note sent to Deutsche Presse-Agentur.