1. FC Cologne: Philipp Türoff regrets the setback in the Geißbockheim decision

FC boss stunned

“A totally important topic for our future”

1. FC Cologne suffered a bitter setback in the fight to expand Geißbockheim. Managing director Philipp Türoff is “stunned”.

The Münster Higher Administrative Court has postponed the decision indefinitely as to whether 1. FC Cologne may or may not legally build football pitches at Geißbockheim. The day after the hearing scheduled for Thursday was canceled at short notice, Philipp Türoff spoke about the postponement in a media round.

The spokesman for the billy goat management appeared irritated as to whether the “Schmäckle” would submit a report the day before the hearing in order to get the date postponed. The FC boss also criticized the impasse in court that has been going on for almost seven years and called for a quick decision.

• Geißbockheim: Negotiation canceled – because of insects

… his personal feeling: “Personally, I already went chopping wood with it yesterday. But today I don’t have to do that anymore. Of course, it came as a complete surprise to us and to me. I never expected that a cancellation would come the evening before such an appointment. Even though you have to take everything into account in our process. What stuns me is that such an extremely important topic for the future of a company in a city of over a million people in Germany can take such turns over and over again over the years.”

… the tactics of the opposing side: “We have been fighting for this court decision for a long time. Submitting such an opinion is current law. Such submissions can be made. But when something comes so shortly beforehand, it has a flavor, namely that it could only have the aim of further delaying the process. All the experts, including those in court, know exactly what happened. We are not enthusiastic, but we are learning what means such a thing is carried out.”

… the time frame for a new negotiation date: “Such dates are not postponed by one, two or three weeks. These are usually many months. One can only be excited. Nothing is as miserable as endless hanging games. The FC doesn’t want to win a legal battle either. The FC wants to be able to play football.”

… further plans: “The world hasn’t collapsed. That doesn’t change everything completely. Nothing we’re working on here will therefore be paused now. We’re working on making the FC better. We need football pitches. We won’t postpone the start of construction on the performance center. As soon as we can no longer use the artificial turf pitch because it becomes a construction site, we have a problem that needs to be solved.”