The bursting of the investor plans annoys the DFL leadership very much. The league bosses questioned the solidarity in German professional football.
The DFL management sees the community of 36 professional football clubs as badly damaged by the bursting of the plan for an investor entry. “For me, and I say that very clearly, this is a defeat for central marketing”, said Axel Hellmann, interim managing director of the German Football League (DFL), after the extraordinary general meeting. There, the plan to raise a lot of money for German professional football with the help of an investor did not receive the required two-thirds majority.
“No one should come up with solidarity issues in the near future”, said the DFL supervisory board chief Hans-Joachim Watzke. The managing director of Borussia Dortmund explained that his club and record champions FC Bayern Munich in particular were willing to give up many rights and have them marketed centrally. “More solidarity than we had set up here, especially the big clubs, you can’t be more solidarity”said Watzke.
Top clubs make “their thoughts”
Because this solidarity “just not wanted” be, the top clubs would “make their minds up”, added Watzke. He had previously indicated that the eleven negative votes came mainly from the 2nd division.
The DFL had promised fresh capital of around two billion euros from the deal. In particular, the money should be used to strengthen the overall marketing of the Bundesliga, primarily abroad. A fixed amount was also earmarked to finance local infrastructure projects for the 36 professional clubs. In addition, the clubs should receive around 300 million euros at their disposal.
For Eintracht Frankfurt CEO Hellmann it is clear that the failure of the deal with an investor “I’d rather let the gap in the Bundesliga widen than strengthen the bracket and the common platform”.