New elections are due at the Bavarian State Sports Association (BLSV) convention on June 23 and 24, and the current president, Jörg Ammon, now has a rival candidate. “There is too much unrest in the BLSV,” says Harald Güller as justification. The 60-year-old member of the state parliament (SPD) had been approached by a number of officials in the past few months, “because a lot is going wrong in the association and they are of the opinion that the presidium cannot continue like this”.
Güller comes from Neusäß, is a member of the state sports advisory board and chairman of the finance committee there, and also sports policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group. He will no longer stand in the state elections at the beginning of October. “After I noticed how actively many officials got involved who didn’t want to take on any tasks under the incumbent, it was clear to me that something had to happen,” says Güller, who actually wanted to take on other tasks after working in the state parliament. But “a rethinking” in the BLSV is urgently needed.
In addition to specific issues such as the difficult financing of the Oberhaching sports school or the four sports camps in Bavaria, Güller also sees overarching tasks ahead. “Overall, there is far too little transparency in the finances,” he says. Last autumn, the SZ reported that the BLSV spent around nine million euros between 2014 and 2018 on the digitization of the umbrella organization, 4.3 million alone were paid to a single consulting firm that was founded shortly before the tender and immediately after the end of the employment relationship had been liquidated. Three board members had filed criminal charges. President Ammon claims the case against him has been dropped. The three board members were recently suspended.
Güller now wants to bring “a breath of fresh air” into the association, where he sees “deficits in communication” and the lack of respectful interaction with one another. Güller’s team of candidates for the Presidency includes the lawyer and arbitrator Monika Pieczonka, 31 (candidate as Vice President Legal/Human Resources), the tax consultant and club chairman Volker Schüßler, 50, from Deggendorf (Vice Finance), the long-standing BLSV district chairman Günther Jackl, 51, from Lower Franconia (vice popular sport and education) and the former cross-country skier Hubert Schwarz, 62, from Oberaudorf (vice competitive sport).
“These are all experienced athletes, some of them long-standing and deserving officials,” explains Güller, pointing out that a young woman as vice-president would also be “extraordinary for the BLSV management level”. In the elections on day two of the association day, several hundred delegates from the sports districts vote, as well as the district and district chairmen and representatives of the sports associations and the sports advisory board. A speech by Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU), who is said to have a personal connection to the current President Ammon, is planned for the first day.
