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Does he go or not? The difficult marriage between the second division football team Hannover 96 and its (still?) managing director Martin Kind is richer by another episode. With an uncertain outcome. The club will probably not survive them unscathed.
A comment by Tiede Thedinga
It’s the next chapter in a never-ending posse. Hannover 96 is considering legal action against – Hannover 96. A posse that, mind you, could end very unpleasantly. In one corner of the ring: members of the parent club fighting for their influence on the fortunes of professional football, on the other side a donor fighting for his influence on the fortunes of professional football. The motives may be obvious. That investors want to control as much as possible what happens to the money they put into a football club makes sense.
Professional football is expensive and risky, investments in the millions are quickly burned out. A look at the federal capital Berlin is enough for the most recent example, the self-proclaimed Big City Club Hertha BSC. That’s why Martin Kind and others have been trying to overturn the notorious 50+1 rule for many years. This states that financiers may not exercise full control in a professional division. But the less say investors have, the less attractive a commitment appears and the greater the risk that a club will lose the economic connection.
Financial dependencies and fear of falling
On the other hand, it is also understandable that members of a sports club fear giving themselves up to the whim of one or a few investors. What if the patron suddenly loses interest in football, goes broke or even dies? Countless examples in paid esports show how quickly a club can rise and fall even faster. Then the highly paid profiteer moves on while the members have to sweep up the pieces.
Insight needed on both sides
What you have to recognize at Hannover 96: The professional football club is already dependent on investors like Martin Kind. If he’s pushed out completely or stops by himself and triggers a chain reaction, things will get tight. The fact that the child’s expulsion may not be legally certain at all makes it all the more astonishing.
What Martin Kind has to recognise: Stabilizing a financially ailing club, as he has undoubtedly managed at the age of 96 since joining two and a half decades ago, is by no means a free pass. Above all, guided by entrepreneurial calculations and with a lot of going it alone, a professional football club cannot be managed.
Maybe Hannover 96 is facing a crucial test, maybe not much will happen in the end. But the image that the traditional club is giving these days is definitely fatal.
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Sports current | 07/28/2022 | 5:17 p.m
