General secretary Friedrich Curtius did not immediately respond following the vote which also saw regional chiefs demand the resignation of DFB president Fritz Keller for comparing vice president Rainer Koch to Nazi judge Roland Freisler.

“I am always available for talks about constructive solutions for the DFB, this naturally includes also my function,” Curtius said in a statement published by the DFB on Monday.

“I respect the vote of the regional and state associations and take this very seriously.”

Curtius, 44, also said the call for Keller to resign made the associations following a conference in Potsdam was a “clear signal” they wanted a new start for the leadership of the DFB.

Koch and treasurer Stephan Osnabruegge meanwhile won votes of confidence.

The DFB has been bogged down in a long-standing power struggle between Keller and Curtius.

Curtius has called on the DFB ethics committee to investigate Keller’s recent Nazi analogy made towards Koch, who is a judge outside football. Further details of the comparison are not known.

Keller has addressed his staff in an emotional letter but so far insisted he won’t resign.

Freisler attended the Wannsee Conference, which set in motion the Holocaust. Later, he was appointed president of the People’s Court, where he handed down around 2,600 death sentences from 1942 to 1945.

The DFB, the largest single sports federation in the world with more than 7 million members, has been scandal ridden for years, most notably the affair around dubious payments in connection with Germany’s hosting of the 2006 World Cup.

Wolfgang Niersbach resigned as DFB president in 2015 over the World Cup affair, and his successor Reinhard Grindel in 2019 over accepting an expensive watch. Keller is Grindel’s successor.