In March, he had to resign as Vice President of the German Tennis Federation. Now Dirk Hordorff has died
The former Vice President of the German Tennis Federation, Dirk Hordorff, has died. The 67-year-old’s death was confirmed to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur by his close confidant Rainer Schüttler and the head of the association Dietloff von Arnim on Tuesday. Schüttler, who is currently also the women’s team manager, wrote in response to a dpa enquiry: “Unfortunately, the very sad news is true. He fell asleep peacefully after a long heart disease. He was my advisor, mentor, coach and friend. I am very grateful to him for everything.” Several media outlets had earlier reported the death.
Hordorff was long considered an important man in the background in the federation. He was very well connected on the tennis tour and headed the top sports department at the DTB. As a coach, he discovered Schüttler, looked after him for around two decades and led him to fifth place in the world rankings.
Resignation after abuse allegations
The Hessian resigned as DTB vice-president in March. The association had asked him to resign several times after allegations of abuse. Hordorff, a long-time official, had rejected the allegations of sexual violence and abuse of power as “simply untrue”.
Hordorff had initially resigned from office after the allegations became public. NDR, “Sportschau” and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” had reported allegations, among others by former professional tennis player Maximilian Abel, that there had been sexualised assaults over the years.
Hordorff had denied the allegations and had his lawyer explain that there was no connection with the allegations, that he was resting his office. “Mr. Hordorff is currently not in a position to exercise his office due to an operation he had at the beginning of March and a pending operation on an aneurysm,” the lawyer had said. The DTB quickly announced that it wanted to clarify the allegations and appointed an independent commission to deal with the matter as well as establishing an external whistleblower office.
