OMG — Oh My God
Hollywood-ready: A "boxer" named Christoph Daum, "The Don is dead" and a spot of scandal money for the national goalkeeper.
"Cassius" — that is what the Cologne tabloids christened the brash, carefree FC coach who shook up German football in 1989 from its slumber. Christoph Daum, combative and confrontational, turned Köln into genuine title contenders — only for the dream to explode in spectacular fashion.
Daum vs. Hoeneß — The legendary TV duel: ZDF viewers held their breath on May 20, 1989. Just before the direct Bundesliga clash between Köln and Bayern, coaches Christoph Daum and Uli Hoeneß tore into each other live on air — one of the most explosive confrontations in German football television history.
The Bundesliga scandal: The 1970/71 match-fixing scandal is commonly associated with Schalke 04, Hertha BSC, Kickers Offenbach and Arminia Bielefeld. But 1. FC Köln were also deeply entangled in the affair, with multiple matches involving corrupt players and officials.
May 5, 1971 (rescheduled matchday 24): 1. FC Köln – Rot-Weiss Essen 3-2. Offenbach president Horst-Gregorio Canellas bribed Köln goalkeeper Manfred Manglitz with 2,500 Deutschmarks to throw the match. Manglitz took the money but did not throw the game — Köln won 3-2.
May 22, 1971 (matchday 32): 1. FC Köln – Rot-Weiß Oberhausen 2-4. Again Manglitz was bribed, this time by Oberhausen president Werner Altegoer. This time the keeper allegedly let four goals in. The DFB later banned Manglitz for life.
June 5, 1971 (matchday 34): 1. FC Köln – Kickers Offenbach 4-2. Once again Canellas approached Köln keeper Manglitz about a favour after the match. But by then the whole affair was about to unravel.
"Toni" and the kick-off: "It's always the same" — with this rather unremarkable sentence began perhaps the greatest scandal interview in German football history. In November 1991, the revelations around "Don" Toni Schumacher and the murky financial dealings at the FC shook the club to its core.
Back to square one: Köln and their coaches — a chapter in itself! On April 27, 2019, the "Effzeh" sacked Cologne-born coach Markus Anfang — continuing a revolving-door tradition that has seen the club burn through managers at a staggering rate.