Munich When the leaders of German football met in Frankfurt on Wednesday, the focus was on a man everyone just called “Aki”. The Dortmund club boss Hans-Joachim Watzke, 63, is currently radiating an almost booming importance in several functions: as Vice President of the German Football Association (DFB) and as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the German Football League (DFL), in which the 36 professional clubs are unite the first and second leagues.
In the meeting of the DFL supervisors scheduled for the afternoon, Watzke had to deal with tricky things. It was about the de facto throwing out of the managing director Donata Hopfen, 45, after only eleven months. On Wednesday evening, Hopfen and Watzke jointly announced the end of the manager at the end of the year. Agreed, as the statement says.
The attempt to practice something like “diversity” in a male-dominated business and, in addition to the sporting triumph of the national soccer players, to let the spirit of modernity blow through the leading organizations in the industry ends with explosive effect.
Almost symbolically for the disempowerment of the DFL management, two league managers are now allowed to take care of the concerns of the higher-level organization as interim bosses in addition to their already stressful tasks in the club: Axel Hellmann from Frankfurt and Oliver Leki from Freiburg, who among other things should take care of the search for investors. “I wish those responsible for the necessary courage and will to change, not only to react to the growing challenges, but also to actively shape them,” said Hopfen. “And of course the necessary little bit of luck.”
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The background to Hopfen’s departure from the DFL
The final disempowerment of hops was preceded by an agonizingly long phase of mutual disappointment that had been going on for months. The manager, who is well versed in digital issues and worked at Axel Springer as the head of the “Bild” publishing house and later in the consulting department of Boston Consulting, always remained a foreign body in the ball sports business. Although she announced that “we want to be the most digital football league in the world”, many people were still unclear as to exactly what that means. There were fears that drones and cabin cameras would flaunt the intimacy of the trade.
Hopfen remained a manager who tended to lecture, who spoke the jargon of the corporations, but who, in the opinion of the clubs, still lacked clear strategy work and a sophisticated business plan.
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To alleviate the financial hardship caused by Corona, the DFL boss came up with the idea of offering around 20 percent of the media rights for sale. The deal is expected to generate up to three billion euros. But not even Barclays Bank, which she apparently favored, was chosen as the lead institution; instead, Deutsche Bank, which is closely linked to Eintracht Frankfurt, pushed its way into the sales process.
Of the seven private equity firms that were interested in the cause, five are said to be left. However, nothing more was heard from the regional conference at which hops wanted to explain their cash model.
Does the deal even happen? Or do you prefer to trust, as in all the years before, to a betting by the television stations and online platforms, which brought in more than a billion euros a year? Hopfen’s predecessor, Christian Seifert, who had been in office for 16 years, had masterfully increased the club’s income and therefore ended up ruling like a well-respected king without a country. Now he runs the Dyn sports platform with the Springer Group, which still gets by without football – which doesn’t have to stay the way some Bundesliga clubs suspect.
With the “50+1” rule, more was expected
At times, according to the impression of those in the know, Donata Hopfen seemed more concerned with questions of power than with business problems. The clubs are primarily concerned with the rapidly declining reputation of the league abroad: it recently only grossed around 170 million euros, previously it was 275 million.
And it’s about the “50+1” rule, which gives club members the last word in investor participation, but has already been breached by exemptions for Bayer Leverkusen, VfL Wolfsburg and TSG Hoffenheim – which is why the Federal Cartel Office is currently interested in it. To the regret of those in power, very little came from hops on the subject.
>> Read also: An alternative to money and short-term glamor – football is rediscovering its conscience
Nothing came of the idea of having a co-boss at the top because of the woman’s various activities. Instead, important workers left the company, such as media director Christian Pfennig and digital boss Andreas Heyden. The working atmosphere should be at a low point.
Hopfen also apparently wanted direct access to the planned new media exploitation company (“Newco”). The fact that she flew from her home in Berlin to Frankfurt in spite of the good train connection from her home in Berlin to Frankfurt was not well received, nor was an interview in the “Kicker”.
Watzke should solve the home-made problem himself
In the trade magazine, Hopfen spoke of a “wild ride” with regard to the DFL and of “many very sensitive issues that have been smoldering for years”. When asked if she felt absolutely supported, she replied: “More is always possible!” As a woman who had not previously worked in football, she was brought in to show other ways.
other ways? Apparently, the powerful head of the supervisory board, Watzke, liked this course less and less. The problems became visible to everyone when Hopfen presented an “International Managing Director” of their choice and the man failed. The supervisory boards felt they were not sufficiently informed.
Now the woman who was to modernize football, who embodied “Disruption”, is history again. A “home-made pile of broken pieces”, judges a longtime DFL insider. It is now up to Hans-Joachim Watzke to revive him, the man everyone in the industry is looking to with hope these days.
“Aki” fills a power vacuum – for which he is also responsible.
More: DFL starts talks with investors about partial sale of media rights worth billions.