BERLIN—A catfish has apparently choked to death after trying to chow down a soccer ball in the locks of a Bavarian canal.

German police say the 6 1/2-foot-long fish was found dead Monday, floating on the surface of the water with a blue-and-white soccer ball in its mouth.

“He tried to eat the ball and it got stuck,” police spokesman Karl-Heinz Kuberlein said Tuesday.

Did the final of the Euro 2008 soccer championship on Sunday, during which Germany lost 1-0 to Spain, have anything to do with it?

“Whether the fish was caught up in soccer ball fever in the aftermath of the European championship and hence snapped at the ball can unfortunately not be determined,” police said in a statement.