Martin Schultze has been sports director of the German Hockey Association (DHB) since November 1st. How the 50-year-old would like to modernize the association’s outdated structures and what he sees as a need for improvement in the national teams, he said in an interview with NDR.
Martin Schultze, you have just become sports director at the DHB. The indoor hockey championship in Hamburg is the first big home tournament. What do you expect from the event?
Schulze: I very much hope that we can get the hall to tremble with a German team in the final on Saturday and Sunday. That’s wishful thinking. Of course you always like to take titles with you, but it would be even more important to me that we can spark enthusiasm here and play a really good tournament.
What do you expect from the two German teams?
Schulze: We want to win gold twice, although it won’t be easy for the women with Ukraine and the Netherlands. The Ukrainians in particular spent almost four weeks preparing here in Hamburg. It won’t be a sure-fire success for the men either, they have Austria and Belgium in front of them.
Next year the European Field Hockey Championships will take place in Mönchengladbach, in 2024 the Olympic Games will be in Paris. According to the DHB, you want to “successfully cut off”. For women and men, however, the last triumph was nine years ago with the European championship title on the field in 2013. Why is that?
Schulze: We’re behind the best in the world right now. I think there are different reasons for this for both teams. For the men, it is above all a question of discipline. We have renewed the entire staff and are working with mental trainers to ensure that we get more consistency in our performance there. But I’m now for the Men’s Field Field Championships (13-29/01/2023 in India, ed.) very optimistic that we will get a medal there again. Athletics is a big issue for both teams, which we absolutely have to improve on.
Other countries are increasingly relying on more professional structures. Is hockey conceivable as a professional sport in Germany at the moment?
Schulze: We’ll never be that professional. Australia, for example, just announced that they are building a new $135 million High Performance Center in Perth. We will never achieve that. We need to find other ways to stay competitive.
When you took office, you said that you would like to “further expand the framework conditions that have already been created”. What do you mean by that and how is this supposed to happen?
Schulze: My predecessor Christoph Menke-Salz did an excellent job of listing personal details. We are really well positioned with both the “Honamas” and the “Danas”. We’ve invested in equipment to further improve athleticism and training management so we can make small but significant steps in these areas. In addition, we want to improve the framework conditions for athletes. It’s getting harder and harder to combine sport and education, the Pro League hasn’t made it any easier.
How is this supposed to work?
Schulze: It’s all about creating a network. Some clubs are already very well positioned, but unfortunately there are still many white spots where this is not the case. It’s mainly about finding people from the business world who support financially. In doing so, they pay two or three years in advance and thus offer the athletes the framework conditions for combining sport and training. The athlete then pays it back through his work in the company. We have the best opportunities here in hockey, so we have to make better use of that and develop it.
What needs to change at the German Hockey Association?
Schulze: A lot has been initiated lately. We have had a major change in personnel in the office. There are many young people who approach the tasks with great commitment and enthusiasm. We have to take our own employees with us and inspire them for the upcoming challenges. But we also have to become more professional in many areas, we are now starting to position ourselves digitally. Bringing such a dressing tank up to speed and correcting it is a task that takes time. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen as quickly as on a club basis, where you can turn around quickly.
What has already changed?
Schulze: A novelty is the independent organization of the home events from 2023. Because of the financial risk, the DHB had always let it run externally for 20 years, but always had little say. At the European Championships in Mönchengladbach we can decide everything for ourselves, it will be a real hockey festival. This will continue to be the challenge for us in the future to create home events. Even if we then run the risk of suffering a total loss economically.
The DHB often struggles with changes. How can new ideas be implemented successfully?
Schulze: I have a lot of experience in clubs. I also worked there for ten years as managing director and completely reorganized a club. So I know how this works. We will have to position ourselves more modernly. In many areas, it’s about making small changes first, so that you can slowly turn things around. It will take until 2024 for us to really work on structures. The biggest challenge will initially be financing the measures that we are facing in 2023, since we still have a large delta next year.
Where does a lot need to be done?
Schulze: A lot needs to be done in the youth field. We don’t spot top talent early enough. We have to attract and promote specialists much earlier. It can’t be that we only have one world-class corner-maker in the Danas, for example. I would also reconsider strict gender segregation and would like to discuss whether that makes sense. Many things could be brought together in order to have more exchange overall.
We need to expand areas like the special hockey team for people with disabilities. As an association, we also have a social responsibility. We also have to become a lot more service providers for the clubs again: As an umbrella organization, we have to help and give input on how the clubs can position themselves better. They’re pretty much left alone at the moment.
Is there an association whose work you orientate yourself on? Where you say things are going particularly well there?
Schulze: For decades, other sports have been based on hockey, but now we have to look at others. In terms of structures, handball has done a lot right over the past ten years. When you see how professional what they now have in terms of TV presence and broadcasts has become. In the beginning, the league bought into DSF, but now they collect TV money.
What tasks are you most looking forward to?
Schulze: My main driver is the Olympic Games in Paris. I think these will be fantastic games. After the past major events, such as the questionable football World Cup in Qatar, the winter games in China or Tokyo 2021 without spectators due to the pandemic, it will finally be a real sports festival in Paris again. I’m really looking forward to it. But it was also my last chance: I couldn’t achieve it as an athlete, I didn’t achieve it as a coach. So I just had to manage to get there in another capacity (laughs).
The interview was conducted by Christina Schröder
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Sports current | 08.12.2022 | 11:18 am
