In the first few days, Otto Fricke, as the new board of directors, experiences how strange the DOSB acts and communicates. In the case of Olympic acquisition, things are now going to a fight vote.
One thing was very important to Otto Fricke: the new CEO of the German Olympic Sports Association (DOSB) emphasized on Thursday at his first press conference in a new function that he always enjoyed doing sports. Never performance -oriented, but at least. Basketball and volleyball in the school team, he included, swimming, badminton, alpine skiing, cross -country skiing, Ultimate Frisbee and – his favorite sport as a spectator – baseball. Incidentally, he also has a paraglider license.
Fricke went directly to the offensive against the most apparent reservation: someone who has had little to do with the club and association sport and sports policy has now been the top priority of the sports roof association. Fricke is 59 years old, comes from Krefeld, is a lawyer and was sitting from 2002 to 2025 with a short interruption for the FDP in the Bundestag. The FDP from the Bundestag was elected at the beginning of the year, so Fricke needed a new task and found it in Frankfurt.
Long politicians, now sports lobbyist
Fricke’s political background was apparently more important to the DOSB than points of contact with sport. “As a long -time member of the German Bundestag, Otto Fricke has an excellent political network and enjoys a high reputation across party borders”, DOSB President Thomas Weikert was quoted when the personnel was announced in June. It is the central task of the CEO of lobbying for the sport in Berlin.
From politics into lobbying – this often has a taste. In the case of Fricke, his project to remain a volunteer assessor on the FDP federal executive board caused criticism. However, this did not detract from his neutrality, both Fricke and the DOSB said at the time at the request of the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
But does Fricke know what he gets into as a DOSB chairman? The umbrella organization is permanently driven by the interests of its member associations. The sports associations have a lot of influence, the state sports associations too. And when it comes to transparency, the DOSB often acts questionable, Fricke got both to feel directly.
Olympic acquisition: Suddenly one Combat vote possible
At the press conference, he had to put up with questions about why the DOSB on his Schlingerweg towards Olympic advertising (for the summer games 2036, 2040 or 2044) took a new curve. The often changed plan recently stipulated that the DOSB and the federal government rate the four Olympic applications from Munich, Hamburg, Berlin and Rhein/Ruhr. The best candidate will then be presented to the extraordinary general meeting in September 2026, so the DOSB members could only have said yes or no.
It was obvious that this was not particularly suitable for the Olympic sports associations. According to the DOSB statute, they are responsible for determining a candidate for a German Olympic acquisition. In addition, you always feel involved in other topics too late on the part of the DOSB.
One Combat vote will probably be
Apparently they have found hearing this time, because the DOSB has added its “three-step model” to the addition: “… the best rated concepts …” – without communicating this publicly. So it is now possible and not unlikely that a combat vote will occur at the extraordinary general meeting in September 2026.
Fricke showed through that this change prevents conflicts. “Our membership associations would say in December at the latest: We don’t want one, we want several.” The regular general meeting is scheduled for December.
However, he does not see a paradigm shift and refers to the decision of the general assembly 2024. This is the top priority for him and there is in a “Roadmap 3.0 “by”at least” to an application concept – i.e. potentially several. To give the DOSB members choices is a much more transparent approach anyway. “Otherwise that would be in one Inner Circle happened.”
However, the DOSB could not adhere to the “Roadmap 3.0” adopted and instead presented the “three-step model” in April 2025. This should expressly present only one concept for the general meeting. At the press conference, a spokeswoman for the DOSB said that this may have been incorrectly presented on the film presented.
Competition Will be longer
So just a misunderstanding? A small formulation error? Probably it is uncomfortable to the Olympic Adult Staff Office with its director Stephan Brause that it deviated from the draft resolution and had to change again. Initially, the DOSB had emphasized that an excretion struggle between several German applicants should be prevented that one wanted to agree on an overall German application. This plan has been a passé for a long time.
Now there are individual applications from cities and regions, including competition. In the end, it is a huge difference for the applicants that they do not have to convince a selection body, as recently announced, but the general assembly. In addition, it is now clear: the (not wanted) competition will still drag on and certainly tighten until September 2026. And in the end there are three losers – you also wanted to prevent that.
Questionable success “Sportmilliarde”
Olympic acquisition is Fricke’s largest construction site, but it is far from the only one. In the event of a long -term topic, he held back due to the lack of training period. At the same urgent topic of sports facilities, he described the “Sportmilliarde” proudly presented by the Federal Government – similar to his interim predecessor Volker Bouffier – as a success for sport.
However, this billion is expected over the entire legislative period, which the bottom line does not mean an increase compared to the sports infrastructure investments of the previous government.
Fricke has Sports facility funding program co -initiated
The information was interesting that Fricke was one of the three inventors of the program “Sport, Youth and Culture”. This was the latest funding for municipal infrastructure on the part of the Federal Budget Committee – and it had many weaknesses.
“In the procedure we noticed that it is far too bureaucratic”, Cleared Fricke. “The problem with funding is that every level wants to be responsible, still wrote a regulation underneath and the poor pigs in the end are those who have to make applications.”
Because of the great effort, many municipalities refrained from applying at all. Financial municipalities, on the other hand, benefited above average, as well as municipalities with good contacts in the budget committee. At the end of Hamburg, Hamburg received 21 commitments, but no comparable majority such as Cologne, Frankfurt or Stuttgart.
Contract runs over three years
How exactly the federal funding benefit will be distributed in the future will be open, but Fricke now knows how to do it. His contract has a runtime of three years with the option for extension of two years – if he likes it in this special world of sports associations.