DFL investor process: Union Berlin criticizes alternative proposals

“interference with sovereignty”

After the failure of the investor process at the German Football League, 1. FC Union Berlin criticized some of the alternative proposals of the rejecting clubs. It is noteworthy that clubs that voted no on Wednesday also wanted more money, said Union President Dirk Zingler in a letter to the members of the club, which the Köpenickers said on Thursday evening published on their website.

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“The alternatives presented for increasing revenue range from debt through borrowing, to marketing the league’s naming rights to – and this is hard to understand – further fragmentation of the game day by marketing an additional kick-off time,” wrote the 58-year-old in it. These proposals are red lines for the Union Presidency. “Interventions in the sovereignty of the clubs and the league, in the schedule design and in the stadium experience – all things that have been expressed by many fans in the past few weeks as the feared result of the influence of a possible investor.” Deals with an investor, on the other hand, could have been ruled out.

The DFL plan stipulated that the national and international media rights should be outsourced to a subsidiary. A potential investor would receive 12.5 percent of the new company’s proceeds over a period of 20 years. The DFL had promised fresh capital of around two billion euros. A corresponding application for a continuation of this process did not receive the required two-thirds majority among the 36 first and second division clubs at the general meeting on Wednesday in Frankfurt am Main.

Zingler emphasized that the vote on Wednesday was not about the conclusion of the contract, but whether the DFL management should be given the mandate to continue the process that had started and to negotiate a draft contract with interested parties. Union voted for that. “Approval of any draft contract that was to emerge as a continuation of this process would only have taken place if the terms of the contract had been consistent with our values ​​and our vision of football,” he wrote.

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