German Football Association (DFB) president Fritz Keller apologised on Monday after comparing his deputy to a Nazi judge.
Keller said during a meeting last Friday that vice-president of the DFB Rainer Koch was like Roland Freisler, the head of the Nazi party’s court during the 1940s.
Freisler was also a participant at 1942’s Wannsee Conference, where it was decided that 11 million Jews should be sent to death camps.
“Sometimes during controversies words are used that shouldn’t be,” Keller said in a statement.
“I apologised in person and in writing to Rainer Koch, who had the goodness to accept it, my comparison was totally inappropriate, notably towards the victims of Nazism, which I deeply regret,” he added.