A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and is in charge of the men's and women's national teams.

Later, association-style football teams formed separate clubs, and since 1890, they began to organise on regional and national levels.

[1] The DFB consolidated the large number of state-based German regional competitions in play for a single recognized national title for the season 1902/03.

The Saarland, Danzig, and the Memelland were detached from Germany and East Prussia was cut off from the main part by the Polish Corridor.

[7] A new organization, Deutscher Reichsbund für Leibesübungen (German Reich League for Physical Exercise), was established and Linnemann was appointed leader of its Fachamt Fußball (Football section), which took over the operational affairs, whereas the DFB lost most of its duties until it was formally dissolved in 1940.

On the pitch, Germany had done well in 1934, but after a 0–2 loss to Norway in the quarter finals of the 1936 Summer Olympics, with Adolf Hitler attending, the DFB and football fell from grace.

Reichsjugendführer Baldur von Schirach and the Hitler Youth took over youth football (under 16) from the clubs following a deal with Reichssportführer Hans von Tschammer und Osten, who had been in charge of all sports in Germany since 1933, making DFB officials even more powerless.

New coach Sepp Herberger was told on short notice to use also Austrian players in his team, which was eliminated in the first round of the World Cup, weakening the situation of football within the Nazi politics to near meaninglessness.

Four Germans (Hans Jakob, Albin Kitzinger, Ludwig Goldbrunner, and Ernst Lehner) represented West Europe in a FIFA friendly on 20 June 1937 in Amsterdam, and another two (Kitzinger again and Anderl Kupfer) represented a FIFA continental team on 26 October 1938 in London, England.

Internationally, Germans were still represented, with Zürich-based Ivo Schricker serving as General Secretary of FIFA from 1932 to December 1950.

FIFA did so on 7 May 1949, two weeks before the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, thus games required permission by the military governments of the time.

Due to partition into several occupation zones, and states, the DFB was legally re-founded in Stuttgart on 21 January 1950 only by the West German regional associations, without the Saarland Football Association in the French occupied Saarland, which on 12 June 1950 would be recognized by FIFA as the first of three German FAs after the war.

The conservative attitude changed only after disappointing results in the 1962 FIFA World Cup when officials like the 75-year-old Peco Bauwens retired.

According to the proposals of Hermann Neuberger, the DFB finally introduced a single nationwide professional league, the Bundesliga, for the 1963–64 season.

Upon reunification in 1990, the East German Deutscher Fußball-Verband der DDR (DFV) was absorbed into the DFB along its honours.

The SFV, formed on 17 October 1897 under the name of Verband Süddeutscher Fußball-Vereine, originally administered the Southern German football championship, until it was dissolved by the Nazis in 1933.

The SFV itself is formed by the following state associations:[17] The Southwestern Regional Football Association (German: Fußball-Regional-Verband Südwest; FRVS) covers the states Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland and was formed after the Second World War in the French occupation zone in Germany.

Since the 2008–09 season, the WDFV is in charge of the Regionalliga West, a step 4 division in the German football league system.

Since the 1994–95 season, the NFV is in charge of the Regionalliga Nord, a step 4 division in the German football league system.

FIFA World Cup UEFA European Championship Summer Olympic Games FIFA Confederations Cup FIFA Women's World Cup UEFA Women's European Championship Summer Olympic Games UEFA Women's Nations League The official mascot is an eagle with black feathers and a yellow beak called "Paule" (since 26 March 2006).