interview
Football offers plenty to talk about before the start of the Bundesliga – BVB boss Hans-Joachim Watzke in an interview.
The new Bundesliga season begins for Borussia Dortmund on Saturday with the home game against Bayer Leverkusen. BVB Managing Director Hans-Joachim Watzke not only spoke to Sportschau about the new season, Sébastien Haller’s illness, his new coach and Borussia Dortmund, but also about the chances of women’s football after the European Championship and the World Cup in Qatar.
sports show: Mr. Watzke, the new Bundesliga season starts for you on Saturday with the home game against Bayer Leverkusen. After so many years in the professional business, is the anticipation still high?”
Hans Joachim Watzke: Yes, in any case. First of all, I love summer, that comes with it. Summer is by far the most beautiful season. And then I always look forward to the first day of the game. Of course, the tension is increasing every day now. And the duel of the runner-up against the fourth in the table last season also has something to offer.
So are you glad that a big chunk is coming first?
Watzke: It does not matter. We have to do well against Leverkusen anyway because we lost last time. That fits quite well.
But there is no look at the cup results? They easily won 3-0, Leverkusen lost to a regional league team.
Watzke: That has no relevance at all. Of course that’s relevant when you’re out (laughs) and Leverkusen won’t be amused accordingly. But that doesn’t matter for Saturday’s game.
Borussia Dortmund has gone through a major upheaval. Erling Haaland is gone, there is a new old coach with Edin Terzic. Michael Zorc is not there for the first time. How do you currently experience the team?
Watzke: The team is not particularly impressed. They worked very well with Michael Zorc, and Sebastian has been onboarding for four years. He’s not new, and Edin is not new either. In this respect, it is of course a change with the large number of new players, but so far we have been on the right track. Then, of course, there was the drama with Sébastian Haller in the training camp. That set us back completely for a few days. You don’t have to downplay that either.
How did the team and the whole club take this news?
Watzke: That was a total shock. You go to the training camp so that you can work in a focused, concentrated manner and always be with yourself. And then, I think on the third day, something like this happens. He had trained in the morning. For a few days football wasn’t the most important thing anymore. First of all, how is Sébastian Haller doing? We have done everything to ensure that he is in the best hands. He’s already had an operation.
WWhat role did Philipp Laux, the team’s sports psychologist, have to play? Did he have to talk to the crew?
Watzke: Yes of course. He was also at the training camp. But every player handles it differently. There are players who then go to Philipp to have a chat. The other goes to the coach. Some don’t want it at all, they deal with it themselves. The important thing is that you have the offer, and I think we’re pretty well positioned there.
Sébastian Haller is also a sporting failure. Do you have to be active again on the transfer market?
Watzke: We said that as long as we don’t have a clear diagnosis, we have to keep the ball low. It’s also a matter of respect for the boy. But we have that now and of course it is also clear that the downtime will be relatively long. And now to dump everything on Youssoufa Moukoko’s shoulders – he is 17 years old – that might be a bit much. So I think we’ll do something again in terms of personnel. A really good solution is also difficult because the range on the market is not exactly lavish.
Can you give a time by when you wanted to commit?
Watzke: Ideally, something should happen in the next eight to ten days.
Can you now rule out that Jude Bellingham will make a move during this transfer window?
Watzke: Yes, definitely, 100 percent.
Why is Edin Terzic the perfect coach for Borussia Dortmund right now?
Watzke: (laughs) I don’t know if it’s the perfect trainer, but in any case he comes relatively close in terms of requirements. We’ve known him for years. Edin and I are very friendly. We live 30 meters apart and see each other quite often. So I know how he ticks. Great coach, but also someone who lives in Borussia Dortmund, who absorbs the club. He was a scout, youth coach, assistant coach for the pros, then coach himself. Edin is a boy from Dortmund.
Why isn’t Bayern Munich champion this year?
Watzke: (laughs) I was in Leipzig, I looked at Bayern’s performance there. It was impressive offensively, you have to say that. They have an unusually good team, have invested an unbelievable amount of money and are therefore the top favourites. Nevertheless, we will try everything. But you always have to be realistic. Everyone, of course, except the Bayern fans, wants Bayern not to become German champions. I said it will happen sometime in the next few years. I just can’t guarantee that it will happen in the coming year, especially as they have invested very well and a lot.
What speaks for BVB?
Watzke: That we have strengthened well. That in Edin we have someone that we all have a lot of trust in. That there is a very positive atmosphere around BVB right now. But you’ve now seen, with the example of Sebastian Haller, how quickly this can turn into the opposite again.
Small break in topic. How do you rate the performance of the German women’s team at the European Championships in England?
Watzke: I really liked this passion, this commitment, this enthusiasm that they brought to the pitch. That impressed me. But I feel the same way as everyone else.
Almost 18 million saw this game live in the sports show. There’s a lot of attention right now. How can women’s football now use this to gain more recognition?
Watzke: We have to see that we can get off this eventization. Will we be able to sustainably increase the number of viewers in the women’s Bundesliga? Those who saw on television how much passion and will there is and who liked it should come and see the women’s Bundesliga.
What is the role of the DFB?
Watzke: I believe that the DFB is already promoting women’s football. We have the vice-president on the executive committee who is responsible for this. Bernd Neuendorf, as DFB President, I know from many conversations, is very positive about the whole thing. I think the clubs are in demand, but at the end of the day the football fan is in demand.
You also have a women’s team at BVB that has made it into the district league.
Watzke: We knew for sure that if we started with women’s football at some point, we might hurt one or the other club that had been extremely committed to it for years. There was Berghofen, for example, who played in the second division, and Lütgendortmund was in the second division for a long time. There was a danger, if Borussia Dortmund comes now, then everyone will try to come to BVB and the smaller clubs have done the work for years. We didn’t want that. That’s why we deliberately said: We don’t pay anything. That means we start in the lowest league and then try to develop something organically from it. We’ve been playing for a year now, we’ve also become champions and have been promoted. We also won the district cup. But without any financial support. Except we replaced the displays. That’s our path for the next few years and then we’ll just see what comes of it. Nobody at BVB insisted that we had to go to the Bundesliga.
In three months, a soccer World Cup will start in Qatar. Are you looking forward to this tournament?
Watzke: I’m happy because now, as Vice President of the DFB, I’m sharing responsibility for the first time. It’s nothing new that people can have very different opinions about Qatar as a location. But I would have wished that someone in Germany might have woken up before the decision was made. But we have to make the best of it. Because one thing is also clear. If we say that we only hold these tournaments in flawless democracies, to quote a former Federal Chancellor, then there is a risk that 70 or 75 or whatever percent of humanity will be excluded from these things. Such a regime, no matter where it is, football ensures that it has to open up a bit. You cannot completely isolate your population during a World Cup. And we have to take a clear stance on that. We will talk to all the organizations there and will already have a voice without losing focus. It’s still about football. But I don’t think anyone in Qatar or in Russia or wherever the World Cup is or has been held would be any better off not visiting those countries at all.
The interview was conducted by Julius Laschet