2024-09-13 17:08:18
Martin Kind, majority shareholder of second division club Hannover 96, is still mourning the failed investment bid for the DFL. He believes a BVB boss is to blame.
“Mastermind” Martin Kind of second division club Hannover 96 has apparently still not gotten over the inglorious end of the German Football League’s (DFL) investor plans. The long-standing 96 majority shareholder called the DFL’s decision to stop its efforts to find new investors last winter after weeks of fan protests “adventurous. Making decisions based on populism is out of the question for me.”
At a panel discussion at a technology fair in Berlin with managing director Andreas Rettig of the German Football Association (DFB), the entrepreneur branded DFL supervisory board chairman Hans-Joachim Watzke as the scapegoat for the failed fundraising. By allowing the outgoing managing director of Champions League finalist Borussia Dortmund to allow the association to become vulnerable to blackmail in the future, “Mr Watzke has caused enormous damage to German football,” said Kind, interpreting the DFL’s withdrawal as a “signal to the fans: If you have enough balls and are loud enough, we will not carry out any more reforms.”
Kind emphatically reiterated his rejection of the 50+1 rule in German professional football. The DFL, the 80-year-old said out of “deep conviction”, is a cartel. “We do not have a competitive market. It is distorted beyond belief. We have no chance of ever coming close to Bayern Munich,” said Kind, justifying his criticism of the statutory majority guarantee for the parent clubs of professional companies under the DFL umbrella.
Rettig, on the other hand, defended the defense mechanism against the takeover of clubs by private investors. “There is no better protection than 50+1, namely co-determination and participation. Without the determination,” continued the former manager of several Bundesliga clubs, “we end up with a Forbes table and not a sports table.” The integrity of the competition is crucial,” continued the DFB official.