Million minus
©IMAGO
KFC Uerdingen will have to go into insolvency proceedings again. On Monday, the club announced that the Krefeld tax office had filed an application with the district court to open insolvency proceedings against the regional league team. The news “did not come as a surprise” to the club’s management, as board member Dirk Röthig explained.
“We did not manage to raise enough money to prevent another bankruptcy,” said Röthig, who took office in October 2024. It is now hoped that the situation “is a long-term and sensible new beginning for the club.” The official also complained that the situation had been repeatedly glossed over as if they were in a position to plug the financial holes. “The opposite is actually the case. We have the feeling that this was not done in the interests of the club, but rather in the interests of personal interests.”
Uerdingen bankruptcy: The team also became more and more expensive
Röthig also used figures to explain why the tax office submitted the application: they started the new season with a loss of around 600,000 euros. This quickly grew to around one million euros. The expenses for the team are also high at 1.4 million euros for the fourth league, “and unfortunately too much if there is no financing,” said Röthig. The fact that the debts increased so quickly was also due to the fact that the team was becoming more and more expensive, “without having the appropriate funds for it. It has to be said so harshly: one castle in the air was built after another.”
According to the board member, 800,000 euros will be due by the end of the season. If costs remained the same, you would be sitting at a loss of 2.2 million euros after the season. Now an insolvency administrator is supposed to save the former Bundesliga club again.
The greatest success in the 120-year history of Krefeld was the DFB Cup victory in 1985 under the name Bayer Uerdingen. In the 1985/86 season the team finished third in the Bundesliga. They also played in the European Cup Winners’ Cup and the UEFA Cup. In 1996 the club, which renamed itself Krefelder FC Uerdingen 05 after the Bayer Group withdrew, was relegated from the Bundesliga for the last time. In 1999 we moved from the 2nd Bundesliga to the Regionalliga. After that, there were already several insolvency proceedings and relegations. In the Regionalliga West, the Krefeld team, as promoted teams, are 14th among 18 teams after 17 match days.