IIn July, the Bundesliga no longer issued the United Volleys license, which they had held since 2015, due to a lack of economic evidence. Players and supervisors who had prepared for another or first year with the 2021 cup winner were suddenly without an employer. “It was a real shitty feeling,” recalls 26-year-old setter Leon Dervisaj. At the time he was “just extremely disappointed” by the managing partner Alexander Korosek, “how he let it come to this”. Nevertheless, like almost all other players, Dervisaj, who moved to Wroclaw, found a new club.
The job search took longer for head coach Christophe Acht. The 44-year-old had to wait until a colleague had failed because all the positions that the family man could think of when the volley came off were already taken. Eight has been on the sidelines at Belgian top-flight club Lindemans Aalst for the past three weeks. The chapter “United Volleys” is not yet closed for eights. On January 5, the court is due to decide on a lawsuit he is bringing against Korosek and his former club for outstanding payments. Due to the ongoing process, the coach is not providing any information.
A larger number of other creditors
The Swedish outside attacker Viktor Lindberg had also asked the European association CEV to help him collect a premium. The request ended up with the licensor of the Volleys, the TG Rüsselsheim (TGR), who did not see it as their duty. Volleyball department head Tim Zimmermann is happy that his club insisted in the past play-offs that the five-digit amount of the agreed fees for eligibility to play be paid before the end of the season. Otherwise there would also be a gaping hole in the billing at TGR.
Discussions with others involved in the sportingly successful project suggest that there are a larger number of other creditors. Korosek does not deny this – not even that there was a letter to them asking whether they would agree to a deferral or partial payment of the amounts. This was not to be understood as a harbinger of possible insolvency proceedings, which the operator had categorically ruled out, but rather as the legally required “open communication”.
Korosek justifies the fact that all obligations have not yet been fulfilled with the outstanding corona and professional sports aid from the federal government in the amount of around 160,000 euros. We have been waiting for this “for nine months”. Korosek is currently “not concerned” that the state of Hesse only gave its own support for the time of the pandemic as a loan and could demand it back in a few years. So far, he has not pursued plans to keep United Volleys alive by cooperating with a lower-class club.
