The world of football paid a final tribute to the legend Franz Beckenbauer on Friday afternoon at the Allianz Arena, twelve days after the announcement of the Kaiser’s death, and a week after his burial. Legendary figure of football for half a century, as player (European champion in 1972, world champion in 1974, Ballon d’Or 1972 and 1976), coach (world champion in 1990), and manager, Franz Beckenbauer is died on January 7, surrounded by his family in Salzburg (Austria).
He was buried on January 12 in the “Am Perlacher Forst” cemetery, in the south of the Bavarian capital, and Bayern, the club where he spent most of his career, decided to pay him a last tribute on Friday , in the Allianz Arena, which Beckenbauer, then president of the club, had built in the early 2000s.
Also read: Franz Beckenbauer, German football legend, has died
A portrait of Beckenbauer was placed in the central circle, surrounded by around thirty funeral wreaths placed by the biggest clubs in the world, such as Liverpool or FC Barcelona. The ceremony took place in the presence of FIFA President Gianni Infantino, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin, the presidents of PSG Nasser al-Khelaïfi, FC Barcelona Joan Laporta and the honorary president of Real Madrid, José Martínez “Pirri”.
Several big names in German football (Paul Breitner, Lothar Matthäus, Bastian Schweinsteiger) and international football (the Frenchman Bixente Lizarazu, the Portuguese Deco) also attended the ceremony, as did German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The tribute began with the notes of Con Te Partiro and ended with Nessum Dorma, two arias performed by Munich tenor Jonas Kaufmann, at the end of a ceremony lasting an hour and a quarter, in a stadium filled to capacity. good third (around 25,000 people).
