The chairwoman of the supervisory board of the real estate group Vivawest has expressed her rejection of the continuation of Vivawest’s commitment as the main sponsor of the Bundesliga promoted FC Schalke 04.
“Personally, I can’t imagine that Vivawest can remain in this commitment in the first Bundesliga, because then it actually exceeds our financial willingness,” said Bärbel Bergerhoff-Wodopia on Wednesday in Essen.
The manager is head of HR at the RAG Foundation. With a 40 percent stake, the foundation is Vivawest’s largest shareholder. The company is headquartered in Gelsenkirchen. It manages almost 120,000 apartments in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Vivawest stepped in as the main sponsor at the beginning of March after Schalke had ended its cooperation with the Russian gas company Gazprom because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nothing was known at the time about the duration of the collaboration and financial details. Vivawest managing director Uwe Eichner had spoken of a “temporary partnership”.
The financing or a sponsorship contract with a Bundesliga team cannot be compared “in terms of effort” with a second division team, said Bergerhoff-Wodopia. “Therefore, there are certainly high interests from other companies, now Schalke 04 accordingly to stand by as a sponsor.”
The Schalke 04 board is currently negotiating massively, including with other partners. “And I’m quite sure that there will also be positive results.” There will certainly also be talks with Vivawest. “But, as I said, I can’t imagine that Vivawest can actually be the main sponsor or a sponsor on the scale of the First Bundesliga.”
