Bayern 'may ask president Hoeness to step down'

BERLIN (AFP) –

Bayern Munich club president Uli Hoeness arrives for the Champions League semi-final first leg between his club and Barcelona in Munich, southern Germany on April 23, 2013. Bayern’s executive board are considering asking Hoeness to resign temporarily while he is under investigation for tax evasion, according to reports on Friday.

Bayern Munich’s executive board are considering asking club president Uli Hoeness to resign temporarily while he is under investigation for tax evasion, according to reports on Friday.

The 61-year-old is reported to have been arrested last month during a search of his home, then released on bail of five million euros ($6.5 million) as part of an investigation into a Swiss bank account he had declared.

Since the scandal broke, there have been calls for him to resign, but Bayern’s board have been silent on the issue with only chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge saying he “couldn’t imagine” being at the club without Hoeness.

Hoeness has said he will not resign, but several members of the board now want him to step down temporarily while he is being investigated, report both Frankfurt paper FAZ and Hamburg-based Handelsblatt.

Some of German industry’s leading figures sit on the Bayern board including the Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer, VW boss Martin Winterkorn, Audi CEO Rupert Stadler and the future Deutsche Telekom boss Timothy Hoettges.

A board meeting is apparently planned for Monday.

Hoeness admitted to magazine Focus last weekend that he had first turned himself in to authorities in January over an unspecified amount of unpaid taxes on cash in a Swiss bank account.

He had originally planned to come forward after an expected German-Swiss tax accord which would have allowed him to settle the matter anonymously with a one-off payment, he told the Focus news weekly.

The scandal has become a political football in election-year Germany and even Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she is “disappointed” in Hoeness who has admitted to “a grave mistake” over his Swiss bank account.

Bayern Munich are on the verge of their third Champions League final in four years after their 4-0 semi-final win over Barcelona on Tuesday and have already been confirmed as this season’s Bundesliga champions for the 22nd time.