The president of the German Football Association (DFB), Dr Theo Zwanziger, has announced that he will not be standing for re-election in 2013.
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Dr Zwanziger, 66, made his announcement at the DFB's end-of-year party, adding that he intends to bring forward elections by leaving the post next October.
"I have prepared this decision for a long time," he told the DFB's website. "In October next year, I will have held a leading role with the DFB for 20 years and that is a long time.
"In this time, German football has develop ed and I was always able to contribute to this. I just cannot see any particular challenges for me now."
Zwanziger became president of the DFB in 2004, initially sharing the role with Dr Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder and then taking the position alone since September 2006.
It has been a difficult last few years with a match-fixing scandal, a refereeing scandal and a dispute with a journalist, but Zwanziger says he will always look back fondly on his time at the helm.
"Which president has ever been able to host two World Cups in his time?" he asked. "I am very proud to have been able to improve the international reputation of our association through these tournaments.
"Franz Beckenbauer, Steffi Jones, Horst Schmidt, Wolfgang Niersbach and I - we really were a great team over the years, but new people have to come in eventually with new ideas, different plans. That is the only way football and the DFB can carry on developing.
"You just have to know when the time has come to say goodbye and I did not need to judge it by age or on advice, I know when a certain era is over for me and after extending this once already, the time has now finally arrived."
Zwanziger will not be leaving football entirely, though, just moving on to another role in the game. He was recently voted onto FIFA's executive committee and he will now dedicate more time to world football's governing body.
"I think I can still get a few things moving at FIFA," he said. "I enjoy my work on the statutes there and if at the end of the day new transparent, democratic structures are formed at FIFA on which a German has worked hard, then that is not bad for the DFB either. For this reason, I will be fulfilling my mandate until 2015 with FIFA."
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