Martin Kind is no longer managing director of Management GmbH at Hannover 96. In a brief statement on Wednesday evening, the club announced the surprising dismissal of the 78-year-old.
“Martin Kind was dismissed as managing director of Hannover 96 Management GmbH with immediate effect for important reasons. The committees will decide promptly on the new appointment of the management. The board of directors of the Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896 eV,” said a statement from the board of directors of the parent club Hannover 96 eV sent out on Wednesday evening.
The professional department did not want to comment on the process on Wednesday evening when asked. It is unclear how Kind, who is still the majority shareholder of the spun-off professional division, will react to the dismissal.
Complicated construct at Hannover 96
At the same time, “Hannover 96 Management GmbH” sends the managing director of “Hannover 96 GmbH & Co. KGaA”, which leads the professional department of Lower Saxony in the complicated 96 construct. This KGaA is 100 percent owned by “Hannover 96 Sales & Service GmbH & Co. KG”, whose shareholders are more than 50 percent Martin Kind as well as Gregor Baum and the drugstore entrepreneur Dirk Roßmann.
In turn, “Hannover 96 Management GmbH” is 100 percent owned by the parent association. This ensures that the 50+1 rule also applies to Lower Saxony. Because this rule stipulates that the majority of votes must always remain with the registered club if it spins off its professional football department into a corporation.
The club structure of Hannover 96.
The club has apparently already found a successor
According to information from the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, Kind was ordered to the club center on Wednesday. “He took note of it without comment,” said club president Sebastian Kramer, who didn’t want to say more about it, “because it’s a pending case.” However, when asked, he confirmed that the eV had already found a successor for Kind.
Conflicts after applying for exemption from 50+1 rule
Kind was elected president of Hannover 96 in 1997 when the club was playing in the third division. Under him, the return to the Bundesliga, the conversion of the stadium into a World Cup arena – and the spin-off of the professional area succeeded. As a child, after 20 years of promoting his club, just like VfL Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen and 1899 Hoffenheim, wanted to get an exemption from the 50+1 rule in the German Football League (DFL), the conflicts came to a head at 96. Kind’s application was rejected, and opposition within the club grew stronger.
When the longtime club boss withdrew as president of the parent club to only take care of professional football, the members elected in 2019 all child opponents and 50+1 supporters to the top of Hannover 96 eV. From then on, the capital and the association worked more against each other than with each other.
Schäfer rejected as a child successor
Both sides could never agree on a common candidate for the child’s successor at the top of professional football society. The eV leadership rejected Robert Schäfer, who was only committed by Kind and Roßmann in 2021. The conflicts seemed to have calmed down for the time being because Kind used his money to compensate for the losses of the Corona period and put together a highly ambitious new team this summer. But this calm is now over.
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NDR 2 Sports | 07/27/2022 | 11:03 p.m
