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Guarantee for Schalke? A story of mismanagement

SFor more than half an hour, the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia Armin Laschet (CDU) in the Düsseldorf state press conference on Tuesday morning almost exclusively asked questions about the corona pandemic, when finally Schalke 04 was mentioned. The “Handelsblatt” and the “Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” had reported that the football club from Gelsenkirchen had applied for a state guarantee of 40 million euros. Many sports clubs and professional football are hard hit by the Corona crisis. Together with his counterpart Markus Söder (CSU) from Bavaria, Laschet did a lot in the spring to ensure that the league was allowed to resume play – albeit under strict corona rules. Laschet himself has been passionate about football since childhood. However, his strong commitment to football can be explained primarily by the fact that North Rhine-Westphalia is by far the state with the most Bundesliga clubs.

Pure burger

But instead of stylizing himself as a savior in dire need, Laschet emphasizes maximum neutrality on Tuesday. When he had read the reports on Schalke 04, he made inquiries first. “To my knowledge, there is no decision on any guarantee issue,” says Laschet. Reports that the guarantee committee will announce the award this Wednesday, he can not confirm. “In addition, guarantees are subject to confidentiality.” In the meantime, he also “researched” that since 1995 there have been “a whole lot” of guarantees to football and sports clubs under state governments of very different colors, which “have never been the subject of a public discussion” . The fact that there was no public speculation on the part of the government was a “state practice” that had been practiced for 30 years. Guarantees would always be checked confidentially and according to strict criteria, so “there will certainly be no Lex Schalke”.

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