Horst-Gregorio Canellas

Horst-Gregorio Canellas (6 June 1921 – 23 July 1999) was a Spanish-German entrepreneur and football official. Canellas is best known for his role in breaking the 1971 Bundesliga scandal. He was also a hostage on the hijacked German Lufthansa Flight 181 in 1977.

Biography Canellas, son of a Spanish father and a German mother, was born in Plauen, Saxony, in 1921. After the end of World War II he spent some time in Spain and then moved to Hesse and adopted German citizenship. He became the managing director of a fruit importer in Frankfurt.

In 1964 Canellas became chairman of Kickers Offenbach, a club then playing in the second division Regionalliga Süd. Offenbach won promotion to the Bundesliga in 1968 and 1970 but suffered immediate relegation on both occasions.

Canellas retired from his business in 1974.

On a flight from Mallorca to Frankfurt in 1977 the plane he was on, Lufthansa Flight 181 Landshut, was hijacked by members of the PFLP in order to force the release of imprisoned German guerilla Red Army Faction leaders. The hostages were later freed by the German counter-terrorism unit GSG 9 in Mogadishu.