Steffi's father takes the blame for tax fraud
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Your support makes all the difference.The pristine heroine whose good reputation has been besmirched by a greedy father did not grace this particular court. Steffi Graf was absent on the opening day of "Germany's most spectacular trial" in Mannheim, and intends to stay away till the end.
She has so far escaped blame for the financial transactions that swindled the German tax authorities out of DM19.7m (pounds 8.6m), so the mobs baying for blood outside the courtroom had to make do with Peter Graf.
Mr Graf, erstwhile second-hand car dealer who struck it rich with his talented daughter, makes a convincing scapegoat. A depressive drunk who consumed a bottle of schnapps a day and handfuls of valium, he has willingly accepted the role of national villain in the hope that his beloved daughter can carry on winning grand slams.
"Steffi was not in any way bothered with tax affairs," he told the court, to the relief of the nation.
Mr Graf is accused of funnelling Steffi's earnings to letter-box companies in the Netherlands and bank accounts in the Dutch Antilles and Liechtenstein to evade German tax. He has already been convicted by the media, and if he is also found guilty by the court he can look forward to between five and ten years in jail. He has already done 13 months in custody. Sitting beside him on the defendants' bench was Joachim Eckardt, the tax expert accused of dreaming up the dodgy schemes.
Mr Graf claimed he had blindly trusted his advisers, and did not comprehend the nature of his transactions. An unlikely story, the authorities say. He had personally negotiated deals with sponsors, and delivered sackfuls of money to foreign destinations.
Harder to refute is Mr Graf's assertion that the authorities had been investigating the flight of the tennis millions as early as 1988, and deliberately gave him more rope to hang himself.
Even more contentious is his assertion that he had negotiated a special tax rate with "people in high places". In 1993 Mr Graf threatened to move Steffi's official place of residence abroad. Some sort of an understanding appears to have been reached, which will be probed in the four months that the trial is expected to last.
Steffi now manages her own business affairs, has built a new life and is back to her winning ways. The contrast between the fates of father and daughter could not be greater.
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