analysis
On Sunday, the national association of modern fifthlitis meets in Frankfurt to choose a new presidium for the third time this year. If that goes wrong, it is probably broke.
The German Association for the modern pentathlon (DVMF) goes into its decisive two weeks. An extraordinary association day will take place next Sunday, in Frankfurt am Main. If the officials succeeds in no choice of a presidium accepted by all sides in a procedure accepted from all sides, then the DVMF performs unique to the German Olympic Sports: the self -destruction of a sports association.
A kind of fatalism can currently be observed among the athletes, there is a final mood. “If we do not have a presidium, no board until September 15, we will probably have to register bankruptcy on October 1st. That would actually be the end for the pentathlon in Germany,” said athlete spokesman Patrick Dogue from Potsdam. Until “down into the youth” there are athletes, “who have now changed the sport, completely stopped. And we also have athletes who have changed the nation.”
Pet fight spokesman Patrick Dogue
Legal entanglements
The tricky situation results from a complicated mixture of selfish motifs, vain state, nepotism, envy and blatant statute weaknesses. From a sporting point of view, the cadre and most successful athletes can be found in the east of the Republic, Berlin and Potsdam. The power centers are located in the large regional associations of North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria as well as in Hesse, where the umbrella organization, in Darmstadt, is based. The attempt to bring both together is currently being based on huge hall damage – and possibly the DVMF.
The last president, who is somewhat properly chosen and registered, was the last, the Heidelberg graduate sports teacher Michael Dörr. His exclusion from the association’s legal committee and two extraordinary association days separately carried out separately within 48 hours in April let the already tense situation escalate. The result: two chosen, parallel -acting presidium, each claiming the association management. A novelty in top German sport.
Lush state alimentation
Because only one vice president remained from Dörr’s original presidium, the Darmstadt district court now appointed a sports lawyer as an emergency board and took the constellation with an expiry date: September 15th. This is still ensuring survival for the association, because the Federation hangs on the drip of the federal grants. Without noteworthy sponsors and considerable marketing income, the approximately 1.4 million euros in taxpayers secure the budget annually.
The federal government is linking the payment of its funding to “the proper management of the association”, a spokesman for the Minister of State for Sports and Volunteering, Christiane Schenderlein, told ARD. When you did not see this for the pentathlon, the ministerials held back the monthly payments. The spokesman knew that the “resumption” of permanent financing was known to be linked to a “proper management”, which was available after the emergency board has left September 15, 2025. So it is checked again after the association day.
CDU politician Christiane Schenderlein
Buy legally voices
So far, all evidence has pointed out that on Sunday the punching and stinging of the officials will continue. The most important point of dispute is the question of how many votes every national association has on Sunday. This is because the statutes of the DVMF have had known loopholes for years that enable manipulations. State associations can get additional votes that measure the amount of athletes for which they acquire licenses. To put it simply: Voices can be bought legally via athletic licenses.
For years, experts have been amazed at mismatching between the amount of athletes who have launched some national associations in recent years, and the amount of licenses they have acquired. A particularly striking case is being checked in Saxony-Anhalt, where several dozen pentathlon licenses may have been acquired for a fencing club-but it was not a pentathlon.
Unknowingly five
One of the apparently affected part in writing announced: “I am playing football, but we belong to a fencing club. At the beginning of 2025 I was informed that my name and that was used by other footballers and fencers to buy licenses in modern pentathlon. I was never asked if my name could be used for such a license.”
Spicy marginal note: When ARD asked the current Vice President Jan Veder how many athletes asked the respective state association in modern thousand-fighter competitions last year and how many licenses the state association acquired, Veder only announced the amount of licenses acquired. He left open whether as expected there is a mismatch.
No longer stands for the presidential election: ex-fifty-up Jan Veder
“The highest way is worthy of criticism”
“Personally, I am really shaken to find out what has happened in the modern pentathlon in Germany in recent years,” said Stephan Mayer, spokesman for sports policy of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, the ARD: “There are mechanisms at work that are not contemporary. This is highly critical.” The DVMF must “make its homework” and in particular “significantly revise the statutes”.
The still reigning Vice President Veder was a candidate for presidential candidate until Monday, then surprisingly announced his waiver. It belongs to the side of the large national associations and stands for politics, which has recently massively harmed athletes. In the ranking games of the state associations, the Veder Presidium had decided to close the successful federal base in Potsdam.
Successful, but possibly uncomfortable athletes such as Patrick Dogue lost their funding for the Veder side like Patrick Dogue. It is likely that the state associations that were previously behind Veder will send a replacement candidate into the race on Sunday.
“I just cried”
What is certain is that Barbara Oettinger, elected in April on one of the two controversial association days,, a multifunctional also well -networked in the German Olympic Sports Confederation, will also start there. Athletes like Dogue hope that she succeeds in putting the pentathlon in Germany on a solid basis.
The German Olympic participant Rebecca Langrehr from Berlin, whose father is in the Oettinger team, describes the effects of the current quarrels for the athletes: “I think, as we have been treated, no athlete should not be treated. And it should never have come so far. And I do not understand how people get through it again and again.” The situation burdened her mentally, she reports on eating disorders and constant nausea. “I couldn’t get up,” says Langrehr, “I just cried.”