West German Soccer Star Draws Ban for Book Revealing Player Drug Use

BONN — Harald (Toni) Schumacher, West Germany’s soccer player of the year in 1986, was dropped Wednesday from his home team, Cologne, because of charges he made about players using drugs.

Cologne President Peter Weiland announced the dismissal, saying that Schumacher, a goalkeeper, would leave the team June 30, two years before his contract expires, as the result of accusations leveled in his ghost-written autobiography, “Starting Whistle.”

Schumacher was stripped of the captaincy of West Germany’s national team soon after excerpts from his book started appearing last month in the weekly magazine Der Spiegel.

He captained the West German national team that finished second last year in World Cup competition in Mexico, and he was goalkeeper on the West German World Cup team that finished second in 1982.

Schumacher, 33, has been Cologne’s goalkeeper for 15 years and has taken part in more international matches for West Germany than any other active player.

His book discloses that he has experimented with pep pills and that there has been a “tradition of doping” among many teams in the West German football league.

The book tells of call girls in players’ hotel rooms, of drinking among players and of personality clashes among some of the big names in West German soccer. It criticizes Franz Beckenbauer, a star in his day and the coach of the West German national team.