That makes sense: sell the item into its home market, and people recognise and favour that brand, and pay a premium for it.
An update: I spoke with the seller, and asked him whether the pedalboard was indeed a Midi item. "It's Midi, and it's not Midi". I think that he saw anything with multi-Pin connector, which can be plugged in, as a type of midi. I have put it down to a lack of expertise, rather than willful deception (although he used to run his own music shop, so he should know better).
The item is unused - it is New Old Stock - and had a retail price of about £300.
Given the above, I am happy to have the item to either resell, or to retrofit with a midi module. (Or even, shove it up in the loft for my children to rediscover when I am dead!)
One can purchase a midi retro-fit kit from Doepfer, and turn a normal pedal board into a midi trigger device:
1. Doepfer midi module https://www.thomann.co.uk/doepfer_mbp25_elektronik.htm
2. Doepfer Panel https://www.thomann.co.uk/doepfer_mbp25_frontplatte.htm
3. Connection cable https://www.thomann.co.uk/doepfer_connection_cable_pd_3.htm
4. The manual https://doepfer.de/pdf/MBP25_Manual.pdf
The manual will hopefully give me enough information to guide me. Oddly, the usual sources of information (YouTube and Redditt) are silent - I haven't yet found detailed advice on installing an MBP25.