1860 Munich: Ismaik statements fuel unrest – Schweinsteiger coaching candidate

“eV blind with hate”

Things are going up again at TSV 1860 these days: After the dismissal of coach Maurizio Jacobacci, who was unable to prevent the recent fall to 15th place in the 3rd league (to the table), “Löwen” investor Hasan Ismaik now spoke in an interview with the “Sport Bild” to the all-round blow. The focus is on the dispute between the main shareholder of the professional football KGaA and the eV. Meanwhile, coach Tobias Schweinsteiger, who was recently fired in Osnabrück, took a position on the rumors about a Jacobacci successor.

The two opposing parties at Grünwalder Straße 114 have repeatedly clashed in the recent past, particularly over the issue of personal details. For example, Horst Heldt, who was now acting as sports director and was reportedly favored by the parent club, was a thorn in the side of Ismaik & Co. – but managing director Marc-Nicolai Pfeifer, who was very popular with them, should be fired sooner rather than later according to President Robert Reisinger. However, Sixty’s sponsors had recently spoken out against an early release of the 42-year-old, whose contract expires in 2024.

“The reaction of the sponsors shows that Pfeifer did a good job. He also behaved politically neutrally and treated both shareholders equally (the registered association and the investor side; editor). Unfortunately, the president and board of directors of the association seem to believe that anything other than open hostility toward the investor and his representatives is untenable and means that the person must be a stooge of the investor. As far as I know, Pfeifer’s ‘crime’ was that he was responsible for a split within the presidium because Reisinger was unable to get his personnel requests implemented,” Ismaik explained when asked.

Regarding Reisinger’s suggestion to install Horst Heldt in the position of sports director, the Jordanian said: “The management is free to make its sporting personnel decisions. I’m not interested in controlling the day-to-day transfer business. We should use experts for this. The argument Reisinger made in favor of Heldt was that he was prominent and sponsors would certainly like to hear his stories about his time with the national team. I have probably never heard a weaker argument for a personnel decision. Personnel decisions should not be driven by vanity. Prominence is not what a third division team needs most and I don’t think the sponsors were convinced of that. Ultimately, I can only assume that the members of the presidium were not completely convinced either, as they decided not to exercise 50+1 in order to enforce their decision for Heldt.

Allegedly, during the search for a sports director, Reisinger asked Pfeifer to present dummy candidates to the supervisory board so that it could push through Heldt’s desired solution, several media reported. Ismaik attested that he did not know “how this gap should be bridged, especially since the representatives of the eV refuse to talk to us about this problem. It would be interesting to find out how the eV wants to justify this loyalty to the Nibelungen. When the truth comes out, it will be very embarrassing for some people. The non-renewal with Pfeifer is one man’s high-handed decision based on personal animosity because he was caught.”

“When adhering to 50+1, business can only function with cooperation. Since 2011, there have definitely been times when this has worked. When I saved 1860 from bankruptcy, I wasn’t yet the bogeyman. Even later, my money was always welcome. The sponsors, most notably ‘Die Bayerische’, who supported us in difficult times in 1860, were also welcome. In both cases only as long as we didn’t have our own opinion. The eV’s idea of ​​cooperation now seems to be that investors and sponsors have to give money – without questioning whether the money is being used competently. My representatives and advisors have only one goal: to manage the company so that promotion and survival in the second division becomes a reality. My partner is always looking for new and ingenious ways to prevent this,” Ismaik continued.

1860 investor Ismaik: “Those responsible for eV blinded by hatred”

The 46-year-old reserves the right to “take all necessary steps to protect my investment. The cooperation agreement should be inviolable for both shareholders, and I have fulfilled every single one of my obligations contained therein. The current behavior of my co-partner shows that he no longer wants to follow the rules of the game. (…) Those responsible for the eV seem to me to be blind at the moment with hatred for everything that doesn’t dance to the tune of their president. These few people in the eV are like ghost drivers who celebrate themselves as the saviors of the soul of 1860, but destroy the club in the process.”

In the middle of the power struggle at management level, Giesing’s heights led to the team’s sporting decline, which lost four of the last five games and also embarrassed themselves in the Bavarian State Cup at FC Pipinsried. After the dismissal of coach Jacobacci on Tuesday, the search for a successor is in full swing, and Tobias Schweinsteiger is considered the preferred person.

The 41-year-old was released in mid-November after just over a year at second division club VfL Osnabrück, which he had previously led to promotion and achieved an average points average of 1.6 points in 48 games with Lower Saxony. When asked about the speculation about a return to Munich, the clubless coach told the newspaper “tz“: “I have no comment on this topic. Except that 1860 is always an interesting club as a local boy. At the moment I’m still busy working on my time in Osnabrück.”

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