The German Football League (DFL) wants to sell marketing rights to an investor for up to three billion euros. The 50+1 rule should remain untouched. But St. Pauli President Oke Göttlich still has many questions.
The topic is likely to trigger fierce controversy: The DFL is planning to set up a licensing company in which an investor can invest up to 15 percent. This could generate 2.5 to three billion euros. Provided that at least 24 of the 36 Bundesliga clubs (two-thirds majority) agree to the plans of the DFL Commission “Future Scenarios Working Group” for the next 25 to 30 years. What St. Pauli President Oke Göttlich considers unlikely.
Open questions: 50+1 and game plan design
“There are still a lot of questions to be answered,” said Göttlich in the NDR Sportclub. According to the concept, there should be a temporary minority interest in license revenue from the exploitation of Bundesliga rights for the donor. According to “Kicker”, the existing 50+1 rule, which denies an investor a majority stake in a club, will not be shaken, nor should direct influence on the clubs and corporations in the DFL be possible. This also applies to the competition, and therefore the design of the game plan, as has long been the norm in Spain and other leagues.
Göttlich does not think it is realistic that such a special path can be enforced in Germany. Instead, he suspects that an investor would push for the game plan to be seriously fragmented in this country as well.
Financial expert Zülch: “Clubs are doing really badly”
“Of course we have to see if we can reconcile that with our football culture at all,” said Göttlich. Financial expert Henning Zülch can hardly imagine that an investor – there are said to be interested parties in the USA and Asia – would give money without being able to exert any influence. “Who is that?” asks the economist. For him, however, it is undisputed “that most German clubs are doing really badly, that they need money to get fit for the future”. From this point of view, there is no alternative to an injection of money.
“Of course she isn’t,” Göttlich contradicts. “We are one of the healthiest leagues in comparison. If we hadn’t had Corona, the German league would be the only one in Europe that would have had a positive equity ratio for all clubs.”
Money should also flow into the infrastructure of the clubs
According to the DFL concept, the money of a potential investor should flow less into the operative business, but to a significant extent into the infrastructure of the clubs, in youth academies, stadiums and digitization. It would also not be the “sense and purpose of the event,” said Zülch, “that the clubs get 100 million and pay their liabilities with it and maybe get a player they couldn’t afford before”.
Divine demands financial rules
Only a small part of the finances generated should go directly to the clubs via a new distribution key and over a period of at least two decades. That too could cause controversy. As the distribution of TV money (EUR 1.249 billion this season) shows, there has always been disagreement among the clubs in the first and second divisions about the allocation. Some want even more because they fear being left behind in international comparison – others want to be appropriately involved because they fear that the competition would otherwise get into even greater difficulties.
“We at St. Pauli want regulation,” emphasized Göttlich. “We want football clubs to be subject to financial rules that are clear and unambiguous.” St. Pauli rejects conditions like those in the English Premier League with “its completely unregulated market that doesn’t know 50+1” – and can feel confirmed in this strict stance by recent decisions.
Authority control for the Premier League
In the fight against astronomical transfer fees – this winter alone 830 million euros were spent in the Premier League (in the Bundesliga it was 67 million euros) – the British government wants to put the league under the supervision of an independent body to control the actions of investors and to regulate. “And funnily enough, we compare ourselves to the Premier League,” Göttlich said. In this way, it must be clarified “to what extent the concept presented is a sensible business practice on the part of the DFL”.
Divine: Don’t destroy the competition
It is clear to all of us that there is a need for action, “that football isn’t just out of control in England,” said Göttlich. For FC St. Pauli, however, an investor entry into the DFL is only up for debate “if it is very, very, very clear what will happen to the money and that it will not continue to be distributed unequally to the same extent as before – and thus the competition is destroyed.”
This topic in the program:
sports club | 02/26/2023 | 10:50 p.m
