Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was still retired when the 36 first and second division clubs last week completed a process at the end of which a private equity firm should have provided around two billion euros for the development of German club football. Nevertheless, he was shocked, said the long-time chairman of the board of FC Bayern Munich on Thursday in Düsseldorf at the largest European sports business conference, the "Spobis": Since the negative vote, he has been wondering "where the investment should come from now, which urgently needs to be made," he said and announced: "The 16 clubs (who did not vote for it, editor's note) terminated central marketing last week."
These were harsh words from a powerful man who returned to his club on Tuesday and is to participate in a new start as a supervisory board. Words that fit well into the narrative of an end to the community of solidarity that shimmered out in many panel discussions at the congress, and last but not least have the effect of a threatening backdrop. Especially since a lot has also broken interpersonally. "I hope that we didn't miss the chance to keep everyone together under one roof," said Axel Hellmann, who was one of two interim managing directors of the German Football League (DFL) and was a driving force behind the plan, which failed for the time being.
Promoting a new sense of togetherness
The critics, on the other hand, have understood precisely such threats as part of the problem, which is why Markus Rejek, who works as managing director at 1. "For me, this was not a vote against an investor process and certainly not a vote against further development," he said, while Hellmann made a clear demand to the 16 rebel clubs: "I expect proposals that we can discuss," said the board spokesman of Eintracht Frankfurt.
Such ideas will now be concretized, although the proposal to simply take out a loan was met with broad rejection, Rummenigge explained: "Where we definitely do not play along, not even Bayern Munich, is that you take out a loan, that you get into the general partner liability." Another interesting option, however, remains the sale of parts of the media rights to an investor. "A lot of good preparatory work has been done," said Bernd Schröder, the CEO of Schalke 04, "that must not seep away now, after the trial is before the trial." Schroeder, like the people of Cologne, had voted against the project in its planned form.
Interest in partnership remains
According to information from the F.A.Z., companies from the private equity industry are still interested in a partnership. It is conceivable, for example, that the contentious pots with the money for the clubs will be eliminated and only one billion euros will flow to the DFL to finance exclusively joint projects. Because the main problem was not the basic idea of working with an investor, but the distribution of the more than one billion euros earmarked for the clubs.
Hellmann emphasized again in Düsseldorf that the use and distribution of these funds would have been the subject of further negotiations, but it was probably a mistake to have allowed too much uncertainty at this point. There was a distribution model based on the handling of TV money, which would have intensified the problems of the present in the eyes of the critics: "The system as we operated it has produced exactly what we have now," said Schroeder.
The investor deal must help to remedy these weaknesses instead of reinforcing them. The discussion about what effects are desired internally was never held, which is why Johann Plenge, the CEO of RB Leipzig, said: "I think we are very well advised to define a clear objective in German football before we reopen the topic."
This process must be initiated by the new managing director, who is still being sought. The latest candidate is Holger Blask, who worked as Director of Audiovisual Rights at the DFL until 2020 before moving to the post of Managing Director of Marketing and Sales at the German Football Association. But there is also speculation about a return of the long-time head of the association, Christian Seifert. Although this idea could be the wish of some dreamers who long for the good time of steady growth.