DFL supervisory board member Oliver Leki strolled into the hotel with a trolley case, while committee head Hans-Joachim Watzke was still discussing with Hansi Flick at the DFB crisis summit. Almost three hours later, Watzke announced that the German Football League and Managing Director Donata Hopfen would end their collaboration at the end of the year.
According to information from the German Press Agency, Leki, who is currently employed at SC Freiburg, and Axel Hellmann from Eintracht Frankfurt are now to take over the DFL leadership as a dual leadership on an interim basis.
Multi-functionary Watzke was asked twice as a crisis manager on Wednesday. While Flick was allowed to continue after meeting Watzke and DFB President Bernd Neuendorf, Hopfen was out. The DFL ended the employment relationship with the 46-year-old “by mutual consent”, as stated in a statement.
„Intensive Monate“
The reason for the separation are different ideas about the further strategic direction of the company, it said. Hopfen had only assumed the chairmanship of the committee at the beginning of the year, succeeding Christian Seifert.
Watzke was dutifully quoted in kind words in the message: “I would like to thank Donata Hopfen for her great commitment and the intensive months in which we worked together in a very trusting manner.” But the first woman at the head of a large German football association obviously had Problems with the Bundesliga managers around Watzke.
“I’m grateful for the time and the work with the clubs and my team,” Hopfen was quoted as saying in a DFL statement. “It was an intense time, I got to know and appreciate a lot of great people. I leave knowing I’ve started the right things.”
Shortly thereafter, Hopfen commented on the social network LinkedIn and complained about the lack of backing: “Like many before me, I came to this job from outside, as a non-footballer, as a woman with a clear plan for how the DFL will lead into the future can be: digital, international and with strong partners and shareholders,” says the statement.
And further: “Such a transformation is a tour de force and requires courage. One often acts on new terrain, positive results usually only become apparent much later. All of this requires staying power, the support and the joint action of all stakeholders. In the end, I no longer felt this.”
The league is in trouble
For the new season, the management is to be redistributed again. Leki and Hellmann are to run the business until then. However, this rule is not official yet. Either way, however, the new leadership has a lot of work to do.
The discussions that have been going on behind the scenes for months about the hops, which only started in January of this year, show that the league has many problems to overcome.
The differences between the industry giants such as Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund on the one hand and those who have been promoted to the second division on the other are naturally large, and the needs are very different. One of the difficult tasks of the DFL management is the reconciliation of interests, which has not become any easier after the departure of the well-respected Hopfen predecessor Christian Seifert.
The long-running issue of 50+1 continues to have great potential for controversy. The Cartel Office is pushing for clarification. The authority does not fundamentally object to the restriction for investors that only applies in Germany, but rather to the exception for the three Bundesliga clubs Bayer Leverkusen, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim and VfL Wolfsburg. The problem dates back to Seifert’s time, but has still not been resolved. There was no solution in sight under hops.
The most important issue for the DFL is domestic marketing, which currently brings in 1.1 billion euros per season. After the drop in income as a result of the Corona crisis, the clubs want more again with the next contract.
The tender for the audiovisual media rights is planned for the first quarter of 2024, but several steps are necessary beforehand – such as coordination with the Cartel Office. That would be the first big task for Hellmann and Leki.
Another construction site after the short hop era is the entry of investors. The DFL is currently working on selling some of the media rights to investors – just as other leagues have already done. However, the project is controversial.
The regional conferences announced by Hopfen in September have not yet taken place. There is a working group. A majority for this billion-dollar project is not recognizable among the 36 clubs.