The end of Donata Hopfen’s work as head of the DFL seems imminent. According to information from the “Deutsche Presse-Agentur”, the league’s supervisory board is advising on an interim solution after the replacement.
A double lead with Axel Hellmann from Eintracht Frankfurt and Oliver Leki from SC Freiburg is under discussion. Hellmann and Leki could not be reached for comment.
The board spokesman of Eintracht Frankfurt and the finance director of SC Freiburg belong to the supervisory board of the DFL. This consists of six people chaired by Hans-Joachim Watzke, the managing director of Borussia Dortmund. A meeting of the committee is scheduled for Wednesday.
There has been a rumor in the DFL for a long time, several top employees such as media director Christian Pfennig and digital boss Andreas Heyden have left the company since Hopfen started. According to a report by “Kicker”, the managing director has lost the trust of the supervisory board.
The supervisory board rejected the hop candidate
There had also recently been trouble at the subsidiary Bundesliga International. When hops presented a successor to Robert Klein, who left at the end of the year, as head of foreign marketing, he was rejected by the supervisory board, according to “dpa” information.
Hopfen has been head of the DFL since January 1, 2022, succeeding Christian Seifert. The 46-year-old has a contract until the end of 2024. Hopfen is also Vice President of the German Football Association.