The handball Bundesliga team HSV Hamburg is reducing the debts of its Spielbetriebs GmbH and thus meeting the requirements of the HBL league association by December 31st.
The club announced this in the evening after a general meeting. The threatening scenario of a point deduction by the Handball Bundesliga (HBL) is now off the table for the ninth-placed team.
“HBL’s equity guidelines are now met,” said HSVH managing director Christian Hüneburg, who took over responsibility for the Hanseatic team last October together with ex-professional Johannes Bitter.
Bitter, world champion in 2007, added: “I would like to make it clear that the option of deducting points by the HBL was only theoretical for us. After all, we have been trying to solve the problem the whole time.”
Restart after license withdrawal 2015/16
HSV Hamburg only received the license subsequently for both the current season and the 2024/25 season. The 2011 German champions and 2013 Champions League winners had their license subsequently revoked in the 2015/16 series. The club then restarted in the fourth-tier league and achieved promotion to the Bundesliga for the 2021/22 season.
Handball Sport Management and Marketing GmbH (HSM), which runs the game, had accumulated a mountain of debt of around ten million euros since 2019.
According to HSVH, six creditors have now waived claims amounting to around four million euros. Among them is the entrepreneur Philipp J. Müller, who is taking over 24.9 percent of HSM’s shares through one of his companies with a further six million euros. The parent club HSV Hamburg eV remains the main shareholder of the Bundesliga team.