In the end, three simple words could decide the near and distant future of the second division soccer team Hannover 96: “For important reasons” Martin Kind is no longer managing director of the club’s professional soccer operations, as the board of directors of the parent club Hannover 96 eV announced on Wednesday evening With. The child was “removed with immediate effect”, it said in the two-liner, but apparently the 78-year-old was personally informed of the decision in advance.
There are drastic events that are happening at the Maschsee. In any case, the bumpy start to the second division season could be the least of the problems in Hanover, where the parties settled on Wednesday for a potentially lengthy legal battle.
The extraordinary thing about it is that Martin Kind was not only managing director of the professional department, he was also its majority shareholder through complex constructs that he helped design. To put it mildly, he owns the shop that has now thrown him out the door.
Kind has been involved with Hannover 96 since 1997, primarily as a donor, but also in a wide variety of offices and functions. Kind is a declared opponent of the 50+1 rule in German football, which is intended to limit the influence of investors and according to which the majority of votes in a spin-off corporation must always lie with the club and its members. In 2019, he and his group of supervisory board members ran for re-election as CEO of the association – but the internal opposition prevailed. Since then, the chairman of the eV has been the former fan representative Sebastian Kramer, himself a declared supporter of 50+1.
So Kind lost his volunteer position at the club at the time, but retained the role as managing director for professional football operations. This area is spun off in a KGaA and is 100 percent owned by the so-called Hannover 96 Sales & Service GmbH, whose majority shareholders are Kind, Gregor Baum and the drugstore entrepreneur Dirk Roßmann. The management of this outsourced construct, however, is determined by the parent association because of 50+1.
What is behind the cryptic formulation “for important reasons” should now be decisive
Apart from the complicated processes, the situation in which Hannover 96 has found itself since 2019 can also be summarized in a simpler way: parts of the association are trying by all means to break away from the omnipresent child, which is why the investor and the eV are apparently under one roof consistently work against each other. In the midst of the Corona crisis, however, it was not possible to say goodbye to Kind, who, with his partners and the money made available, ensured in the first place that the second division team did not slip further. Now, however, the club management around Kramer seems to have found a model for how things could continue without children and child money – the sudden separation can hardly be explained otherwise.
What is behind the cryptic formulation “for important reasons” should now be decisive: only thanks to this regulation can the club’s management dismiss the child at all without first consulting the supervisory board. In a statement, the hearing aid company now stated that it wanted to take legal action for precisely this reason. Kind was not available for a conversation with the SZ on Thursday.
The entrepreneur preferred to let others speak for him. “If this board now takes over the professionals, it will be the end of professional football at Hannover 96,” said club icon Dieter Schatzschneider on Thursday Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung. The 64-year-old former striker works as a talent scout at 96 and is considered one of Kind’s closest confidants. “I’m angry because Martin Kind is always being hit, especially by the board of the entire club,” said Schatzschneider. Others, such as former coach Peter Neururer and tennis pro Nicolas Kiefer from Hanover, publicly agreed with him.
On the other hand, all those who had shouted “kids out” and other, less youth-free protests in the stadium in the past few years should feel confirmed in their course. Kramer answered the question of whether there were already successor candidates with a short “yes”, names like that of the former DFL and St. Pauli managing director Andreas Rettig (a declared 50 + 1 friend) are currently making the rounds. However, it could possibly also result in a short-term interim solution, and the club wants to present one by the weekend. Whoever succeeds Martin Kind: a torn club with an unclear legal, financial and therefore probably sporting future awaits him. And he should also be on good terms with the most important majority shareholder: Martin Kind.
