13 out of 20 clubs with a seasonal deficit
That sounds worrying to many critics because according to recently released DFB-Report on the 2020/21 season, the average expenditure of the clubs (11.8 million per season) already exceeds the income (almost 11.4 million). Many clubs apparently only survived the corona pandemic with state subsidies. 13 of the 20 clubs reported a seasonal deficit in 2020/21. And it’s been like this for years. Nevertheless, the responsible spoke DFB-Vice President Peter Frymuth at a press conference in April just said that the “Responsibility at the clubs” lie. On their commercial work on site DFB little influence.
At least she has task force some tightening of the approval procedure, which is also under criticism. These should take effect from the 2023/24 season and, according to Frymuth, “to further stability of the league” to lead. In essence, it is about violations of the equity requirement (according to DFB only nine clubs have positive equity capital) and to punish their own targets earlier and more severely than before – with fines and punk deductions.
These measures are a first step, but would come too late and are far from sufficient, says Andreas Rettig to “Sport inside“. The former DFL-Managing Director left the management of Viktoria Köln at the beginning of May. He points to the most serious error in the system from his point of view: The clubs send their budget documents for the coming season (from July) to the in March DFBthen receive the license – and only in November, i.e. well after the transfer period, does the check DFBwhether the budget planning was also correct.
Turkgucu as a prime example
In the case Turkgucu the originally calculated three million euros in personnel costs had turned into five million. That didn’t surprise anyone in the league – but it did DFB. The sum of the personnel costs was absolutely unrealistic in view of the squad, which was prominently filled with former first and second division professionals, so the tenor across the league. Overall, the clubs spend an average of 4.9 million euros on their players. The former Turkgucu– Goalkeeper René Vollath spoke to “Sport inside“From the fact that there were monthly salaries for individual players in excess of 20,000 euros.
Andreas Rettig says that DFB must “Get sharper instruments in hand in order to be able to sanction here more promptly or to issue conditions during the year”. He demands a checkout by the DFB at the end of the transfer period, i.e. at the beginning of September – and not just in November. Then you could clubs in financial difficulties “pull the plug by the end of the year at the latest”. Say: Turkgucu would have been ruled out in winter. The accusation of distortion of competition would then not have arisen in this form.