With the former national hockey player Bettina Heinicke as vice president for the departments, a woman from the Ditzinger team was also elected to the five-strong executive committee. “That was a trend-setting meeting. I’m really looking forward to the cooperation of two women on the Executive Committee,” said Kumpis. “Eintracht made history.” In fact, for the first time in 30 years, a woman is at the head of a German professional football club.
“I believe that this is a special constellation here in Braunschweig and I can’t say why it doesn’t work in other clubs and why there are no women in these bodies.”
— Nicole Kumpis
“I know the club very well, I am very well networked through my work and am familiar with the people involved,” said the board member at DRK Braunschweig-Salzgitter, who headed the Eintracht Braunschweig Foundation until 2021. “That’s why it was a logical step for me to take on responsibility here.”
She wants to unite the club with its 5,600 members without bending over backwards. “I certainly won’t be able to take everyone with me and inspire them with our path. But you don’t have to,” says Kumpis. “You then have to accept that there are different opinions and still find a common basis on which we can promote unity together.”
“Now we have to ask the fans: What do you need? What can we do? It’s a job for all of us.”
— Nicole Kumpis
The new Eintracht President stands for a way in which fans and members can have a say again. “This being a fan, this feeling, I’m going to eat my bratwurst on Saturday, drink my beer, meet up with friends on the south curve beforehand and chat about what went wrong on the last day of the game and who is set up today: I already had this feeling before the The pandemic has less and less to do with what people associate with modern professional football, and that has made the Corona crisis even worse,” said Kumpis. “Now we have to ask the fans: What do you need? What can we do? It’s a job for all of us.”
Already in the children’s cart in the Eintracht Stadium
The 48-year-old has been in the middle of the “lions” since childhood instead of just being there. She can’t even remember her first game at the Eintracht Stadium, she said. “My father pushed me in the buggy back then.” For years she has had a season ticket in the fan corner, block 7 on the south stand.
“That’s where I come from, that’s where I belong and that’s where I’ll stay,” said Kumpis, who also wants to appear regularly in the VIP boxes in the future. In order to take everyone with us on the planned path back to the Bundesliga.