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DFL between 50 + 1 and looking for investors: “It pisses me off”

IAt some point Fernando Carro got angry. “It pisses me off,” said the managing director of Bayer Leverkusen at the SPOBIS sports business congress, which is taking place this week in Düsseldorf, when the question was raised in a discussion with his colleagues Carsten Cramer (Borussia Dortmund) and Oliver Mintzlaff (RB Leipzig). the correct attitude of German football towards investors.

As is well known, the German Football League (DFL) is currently working on selling around a quarter of the shares in the media rights to international marketing to an investor, but Carro wants more: the Spaniard, who was on the Bertelsmann AG board for a long time, hopes that the The 50+1 rule is overturned and the accusation was made that the industry had developed a “taboo” here. If the clubs are willing to sell parts of the international marketing rights to an investor, “then let’s discuss 50+1 openly,” he exclaimed. The refusal of such a discussion is “populist”.

Journalists from the “far left”

That was strange, because the rule has existed for more than 20 years, and since then arguments have been exchanged in waves, in public, among fans, officials and within the DFL, where votes have already been taken to keep the rule. At some point, Mintzlaff tried to calm his angry colleague, “everything is recorded here,” said the RB official, but Carro couldn’t be stopped. Also “the journalists, many of them only on the far left, left-oriented”, who refuse this debate, are responsible for the standstill.

This more emotional than factual interlude was a massive contrast to the appearance of Donata Hopfen, who had previously weighed every word of her 30-minute talk with maximum caution, knowing full well how emotionally people sometimes react to the investor topic. The 50+1 rule, which prevents financiers from taking over voting majorities in clubs, is currently only of secondary importance.

The DFL is negotiating with eight companies that can envisage acquiring shares in the international marketing rights for the entire league, which is possible without new rules. Specifically, seven private equity companies and the cable network operator Liberty Media are said to have expressed an interest. Deutsche Bank has been commissioned to mediate at the interface between these potential investors and the DFL.

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