Sports Director
According to managing director Christian Keller, 1. FC Köln will continue to face “extreme” financial challenges in the coming years. “We have an infrastructure that was top in German football in the 1960s. There are now third division clubs that are better positioned than we are,” emphasized the 43-year-old in an interview with “sports buzzer“. Keller joined the Rhinelanders on April 1 and described the club at the general meeting as a “restructuring case”.
“I only gave an assessment of the stock, that had nothing to do with criticism. We all know that the pandemic has hurt every football club a lot. As the new management, it is our duty to map clear expectation management and create clear expectations,” explained Keller, who would do the same in the private sector. “So first of all, we’ll take stock, so that we can then take our time to think about which strategies we can use to turn things around. It may take a while for these measures to take effect,” he said. Due to the limited funds, you could only act to a limited extent on the transfer market in the summer. “Because there was no other way financially,” said Keller.
Podolski in 2nd place: The 10 most expensive additions to 1. FC Köln
The Cologne team invested 6.45 million euros in new players, which only Hertha, Werder and Bochum undercut in the league. On the income side, meanwhile, there were 12.27 million euros, which meant a transfer plus of 5.82 million euros. In the previous season, the Domstädter recorded a surplus of 22.9 million euros. Money does increase the probability of goals, “but fortunately you don’t score any on your own,” said Keller. Factors such as a clear game idea, a functioning collective and clear team leadership are also important. “These soft factors can make up for monetary deficits, which mean that you cannot recruit the highest individual player quality, to a certain extent. But of course it doesn’t work without talent. And fortunately we have that in our squad. Nevertheless, there are clubs that have even better talented players,” emphasized the managing director.
FC are currently in eleventh place in the Bundesliga after playing eleven games and still have a chance of taking part in the knockout stages of the Conference League. For Cologne, it is the first trip to Europe since the 2017/18 season, when the group stage of the Europa League ended.
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