The day after Franz Beckenbauer’s death at the weekend, German state TV channel ARD aired a recently completed documentary about the elegant libero’s life that, as fate would have it, had been scheduled for this time slot weeks ago. German weekly newspaper Die Zeit commented: “There was always this saying, When Franz jumps out the window, he floats up into the air. There’s now a new variation on that: When Franz dies, there’ll be a program about him on TV anyway.”

Beckenbauer did not want to be interviewed for the movie, most likely due to his declining health (his brother Walter appears as a kind of replacement). It may also have been for the same reason that he rarely appeared in public during the past decade – embitterment at the way he was now perceived in the public eye following revelations about how Germany won the right to host the 2006 World Cup.

Der Kaiser was not just the famous face of that bid, he was the tireless campaigner at the head of Germany’s organizing committee. In the documentary, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer says that it would be “naïve” to think that Germany had won the bid without dubious exchanges of cash between FIFA functionaries. Everyone knows how FIFA operated under ex-President Sepp Blatter, he says, and it’s no different today under the phoney reformer Gianni Infantino. “We should all be the accused,” says Fischer.

It’s an extremely good point. Prior to Fischer’s observations, we’ve just spent over an hour marvelling at Beckenbauer’s remarkable achievements as a player and a coach. And while the movie doesn’t gloss over his complicated personal life, and the difficulties he experienced with the German media and the tax authorities in the 1970s at the peak of his career, these are the typical flaws we’ve seen in so many sporting heroes before. Supremely gifted with a ball, less so when it comes to love and money. In such cases, genius is almost always forgiven.

The revelations in 2015 about the 2006 World Cup, however, were a different breed of reproach. At the time of the tournament, Beckenbauer said he was working as a volunteer for the good of the nation. Let’s not forget what a wonderful World Cup it was, and how Germany showed a hospitable, friendly side that defied the old stereotypes of the last century. Finally, its fans felt like they could wave a flag and cheer for their team without feeling guilty about the Second World War. Without Beckenbauer, that tournament would have happened elsewhere.