Bayern boss Hoeness free again as probation period ends

Berlin (AFP) – Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness can consider himself a free man, after completing a three-year probation period following his 2014 conviction for tax fraud, a German court ruled Friday.

Hoeness, 67, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for tax evasion of at least 28.5 million euros ($32.433m) in 2014 and, after resigning as Bayern president, served his sentence at Landsberg prison, near Munich, where Adolf Hitler wrote ‘Mein Kampf’.

After 14 months on ‘day-release’ from January 2015, which saw him return to prison each evening, Hoeness permanently left Landsberg in February 2016.

Having been on probation for the last three years, “there have been no negative reports” a district court in Augsburg, Bavaria, has ruled, meaning Hoeness is a free man.

The decision was the “normal consequence of an expired probationary period,” the court said.

Following his release from jail, Hoeness was re-elected as president of Bayern in November 2016 at the club’s general assembly and received 98.5 percent of the vote.