DESG President Matthias Große launched a sweeping attack against the ARD’s critical reporting and firmly rejected all allegations.
“People who denounce me and lead my association to the slaughter, I only share the courtroom with them,” said the 58-year-old at a press conference on Thursday in Berlin.
This was called due to the allegations against the German speed skating and short track community and himself, which were made public in an ARD investigation at the beginning of the Winter Olympics in Milan.
Shortly before the start of the event in Berlin’s Müggelturm, the responsible journalists Hajo Seppelt and Jörg Mebus were denied access by a lawyer’s letter.
When asked by SID, the Association of German Sports Journalists (VDS) and ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky spoke of a “clear interference with press freedom”, while Seppelt himself spoke of an “unprecedented, unique event in the history of German sports associations”.
Great prophesied legal dispute like in “Causa Pechstein”
Große, head of the association since 2020, felt it was “an impudence towards the DESG to destroy the work of four years, hundreds of volunteers, athletes and officials,” said the partner of the five-time Olympic speed skating champion Claudia Pechstein, who repeatedly sharply attacked Seppelt and Mebus during the two and a half hour PK.
“With what my organization is able to do, with my entire company, with the entire group, with what assets I have, I will do everything to ensure that what happened is never allowed to happen again. We will not allow ourselves to be paraded and denounced,” said the Berlin real estate entrepreneur.
The damage that has occurred since the ARD report was broadcast is seven figures – the process will take “just as long as the Pechstein case. And I promise you, it will end in the same way as the Pechstein case,” said Große. The Pechstein legal dispute with the World Speed Skating Association lasted 16 years.
On Thursday morning, Große and his team rejected all accusations that the association was neglecting the athletes, holding back budget plans and not paying out bonuses or only paying them with a long delay. There is also no “climate of fear” and the athletes themselves were not there.
Fridjof Petzold had publicly criticized the association during the Winter Games, and according to Große, a disciplinary commission would now decide on the appropriate consequences for the Olympic participants.
