the Oberliga Nord and Oberliga West. The Oberliga Berlin, for a time, covered all four occupation zones of Berlin but the eastern clubs later left. In the Soviet zone, a separate league was formed, later to become the DDR-Oberliga. What did change in German football was the introduction of a form of semi-professionalism, the Vertragsspieler (Contract player). Players in the top leagues were now allowed a payment of DM 120 per month, later raised to 400. All this half-way step however achieved was that players would be paid their permissible wage over the table and extra money under the table through hidden accounts. West Germany's surprise victory at the 1954 FIFA World Cup led the team's coach, Sepp Herberger, to demand a national league once more. Herberger had already been a driving force of this move in the late 1930s. Ironically, his very success in Switzerland in 1954 spoke against him, with opposition to the league claiming that the current system was the reason for Germany's success in the first place. Herberger's dream of a national league, now titled the Bundesliga, was finally achieved in 1959, but in the wrong sport, for him, with the establishment of the Ice hockey Bundesliga as the first league to carry that name. Herberger found support for his plans in Hermann Neuberger, at the time a DFB official and later to become its chairman, and Franz Kremer, chairman of the 1. FC Köln. Kremer became the voice of the powerful clubs in the West, raising the issue at every annual convention of the German association. In 1957, a twelve-men commission was formed to investigate the Bundesliga question, in April 1958 a special conference of the DFB declined the introduction of the league once more. In 1960, the football association of the Saarland, Neuberger's home region, demanded a reduction of top-level clubs without clearly mentioning the word Bundesliga, a step that was approved but its execution procrastinated. Approval Disillusioned with the slow process of implementing this reduction, the clubs from the West once more raised a motion, to introduce the Bundesliga in 1963, which was approved. Germany's poor performance at the 1962 FIFA World Cup greatly helped the cause, like it did in 1938. On 28 July 1962, at the annual convention of the DFB in the Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, at 17:45, the introduction of the Bundesliga was officially approved with 103 votes for the league