Before the court date between the parent club Hannover 96 eV and Martin Kind, professional football managing director who had been recalled by him, it becomes clear how shaky the Hannover 96 construct is – the 50+1 rule and thus the license are at stake.
“Management GmbH is an intermediary, just to keep the 50+1, so you can say: it belongs to me, to my parent club, to me eV – and that means I have power of disposal over the licensed player department,” said the lawyer for sports law, Kolja Hein , the NDR. In other words: Should the club boss Kind, who is suing before the regional court in Hanover for “entitlement to continue his activity as managing director” of that same Management GmbH, be right on August 16th and remain in office against the will of the eV, this power of disposal and thus undermining the 50 +1 rule.
How do investors react when a child is deprived of power?
However, it is also unclear how to proceed in the event of a contrary verdict: How much would an investor want to pump money into a club in which he no longer has the say? For this reason, co-partner Dirk Roßmann had already criticized the approach of the management of the parent association: “The position that pays – in my case a double-digit million amount – and the others determine where to go has never worked,” he said Newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND).
96 structure under the magnifying glass
In any case, Kind’s lawsuit should ensure that the complicated 96 structure with several companies and thus also the license for the second division soccer team is at least subjected to a more detailed examination. It would need to be clarified whether the right to issue instructions means that the eV can dismiss the managing director without the majority consent of the supervisory board. And also whether any blocking of the control body would violate 50+1.
In the case of Kind’s dismissal, the association spoke of “important reasons”, among other things, the capital side is said to have not transferred contractually agreed money to the eV. In addition, the lack of transparency in economic decisions was criticized. There is a lot of room for interpretation here: “What is opacity? Do I have to explain what was discussed every day or do I do it every week? Every month? If only the basic information has to be forwarded, you would have to take a close look at what was agreed in the contract,” said lawyer Hein.
Compromise with two managing directors?
According to information from the “Neue Presse”, the first background talks about a possible compromise solution in the future are apparently being held in Hanover. One idea is therefore to have the outsourced professional football company managed by two managing directors, one of whom in this case should be the current sports director Marcus Mann.
So far, the association and capital have never been able to agree on a joint managing director and child successor. Robert Schäfer, appointed by Kind and co-partner Roßmann, was rejected by the eV management. Conversely, in Andreas Rettig, Kind rejects the opponent’s favourite. But first, on August 16, the judges at the district court in Hanover are on the train.
This topic in the program:
sports club | 07.08.2022 | 10:50 p.m
