“The repetitive allegations exhausted me. My family and I receive hate messages and threats from people we don’t even know, ”wrote Werner. “The targeted allegations that have been placed against me in the tabloid media for weeks are wrong or completely out of context.”
In order to avert further damage, after many conversations with friends and family, he decided to permanently resign from his position. “Anyone who regards this resignation as an admission of guilt is wrong,” stated Werner. He also wanted to take legal action against the “malicious media prejudice”. For the time being, there was no official statement from LASK. As could be heard from people around the club, a new vice president is to be elected in a plenary meeting on Friday.
As the magazine “News” reported at the end of April, the Upper Austrian is said to have done business with the transfer rights of LASK players through a company investment and thus violated FIFA rules. Werner, who used to be a players’ agent and has been focusing on his role as LASK Vice President since 2019, has handled discreet deals with transfer rights, presumably even after 2015, when these were long expressly prohibited by FIFA and the ÖFB.
Two proceedings initiated
For this reason, Senate 5 of the Bundesliga initiated disciplinary proceedings against LASK the previous week. The association has until June 1st to comment as well as the possibility of a personal hearing during the meeting that takes place in the following week. On Wednesday, Senate 2, the arbitration and control committee, opened a procedure because Werner could have violated the ÖFB regulations on working with players’ agents. The deadline for an official statement is June 9th. The possible sanctions are currently largely unknown.
In an open letter to selected journalists, Werner vehemently opposed the rumored allegations. Above all, he firmly rejected the fact that he had enriched himself at LASK. “I have been working on a voluntary basis for LASK since 2013, first as an external consultant, then after the sale of my company as a sports director and vice president. I did not receive any salary or allowance for these activities. I always paid all expenses out of my own pocket, regardless of whether it was a car, fuel costs, plane tickets or hotels. In addition, as a sponsor, I have paid LASK several hundred thousand euros over the past seven years for marketing services and tickets. “
Werner sees “prejudice”
Particularly sad is the fact that “allegations are published without ever having presented evidence. LASK and I now have to prove that there are no such agreements or contracts – in a constitutional state it should actually be the other way around. This media staging and prejudice obviously serves the goal of inflicting the greatest possible damage on LASK and myself. “
The current turmoil is not the first affair over the past year that has garnered undesirable headlines for LASK. Last season, the athletes had four points deducted from the table because of the coronavirus training affair. The team had violated fair play rules and completed joint team training. There was also a lot of unrest around the Linz stadium project and, most recently, in the fighting team’s coaching team: Head coach Dominik Thalhammer had prevented his assistant Emanuel Pogatetz from traveling to Vienna before the last league game at Rapid last Saturday.
