Only Oliver Kahn kept a Bundesliga goal more often. Today, German football legend Eike Immel turns 65, lives on 563 euros in welfare benefits and was recently sentenced to two years and two months in prison for 107 counts of fraud.
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- Eike Immel was one of the most successful German goalkeepers of all time, with 534 Bundesliga games and early appearances for the national team.
- After the end of his career, he crashed due to gambling addiction and financial problems and was sentenced to over two years in prison in 2025 for 107 counts of fraud.
- Today, he lives on welfare and talks openly about his downfall and his lack of independence. Immel is 65 years old today.
He was considered one of the best in his field. He was already keeping goal for the German national team at the age of 19 - never has a goalkeeper of a German senior national team been younger. And to this day, with 534 Bundesliga games for Dortmund and Stuttgart, Eike Immel is number two in the record list of German goalkeepers, behind Oliver Kahn (557). A career full of highlights: DFB goalkeeper at the home European Championship in 1988, UEFA Cup final against Napoli and Diego Maradona, German champion. Then came Rolf Fringer.
In the summer of 1995, the current blue expert took over VfB Stuttgart, Immel's former club, and dismissed the experienced player, who was 35 years old at the time. "He called me in and told me: You'll never play here again. Unless everything goes wrong and we need another experienced man. After that statement, I had no choice but to change clubs," Immel once said.
He moved on to Manchester City, made 43 appearances - and continued to plummet. He became addicted to gambling and gambled away his entire fortune. TV appearances such as in the jungle camp or the format "Promis unter Palmen" brought in a little money in between. He also threw that money out the window in style.
Sentenced to prison for 107 counts of fraud
Today, the former football millionaire Immel lives on 563 euros in welfare benefits. This summer, he was sentenced to two years and two months in prison for 107 counts of fraud. In a report on RTL 2 entitled "Poor Germany", Immel recently openly admitted: "I'm not independent at all."
He had a flair for scandal from an early age. At 19 and 20, he wrecked his first cars, which he earned with his football salary. He once told the magazine "11Freunde": "I think it's a shame that you play football for twenty years and all that's left is: he gambled and wrecked two cars."
Immel will be 65 years old on November 27. Congratulations to him!
