VfB Lübeck verweigert Aufsichtsrat Entlastung

VfB Lübeck members denied discharge to the club’s supervisory board during a turbulent, 333-minute annual general meeting at the Millenniumpalast in Roggenhorst, casting a stark shadow over the Regionalliga club’s leadership following a series of financial near-misses and internal fan conflicts. HL-SPORTS reported that the marathon gathering, which began at 7 p.m. on Tuesday and concluded at 0:50 a.m. on Wednesday, drew 364 members to a session defined by heated debates over missing funds, leadership departures, and a violent March 2026 attack on the club’s fan village.

Financial chief Sebastian Rath delivered the evening’s most alarming revelation to the 342 voting members present, stating plainly that it was a miracle the club was still sitting there. Rath detailed a 509,000-euro deficit that nearly forced the club into insolvency over the summer, averted only when three members of the supervisory board opened their own corporate coffers to cover the gap. Salaries for June 30 were left unsecured in what officials described as a temporary crisis, forcing the club to draw operational funds forward from the active season—a practice Rath identified through the financial committee and pledged to break.

The financial ledger proved a point of deep contention because the e.V. association and the VfB Lübeck Fußball Spielbetriebs GmbH operating company were presented together in a single consolidated calculation. Supervisory board member and tax advisor Dennis Tensfeldt defended the combined accounting as a necessary tool for clarity, yet members criticized the presentation as opaque. Rath conceded that the club could not continue on its current trajectory and announced an immediate austerity course to stabilize operations.

The session turned sharply contentious when supervisory board member Detlef Meyer-Stender addressed the March 13, 2026, attack on the club’s fan village, labeling the incident a massive act of stupidity. The Ultra Kollektiv Lübeck (UKL) acknowledged responsibility for planning and executing the assault shortly before the meeting, attempting to justify it with accusations against rival groups. Meyer-Stender criticized the UKL for arriving far too late with their insights, noting that while not all members of the rival Halunken fan club are right-wing extremists, certain individuals in their orbit belong to that political spectrum. He admitted that the club failed in its oversight when it pushed conflict resolution back into the supporter curves and acknowledged that an external mediator from Ingolstadt, Sebastian Wagner, ultimately failed to broker peace.

Meyer-Stender also defended the controversial decisions surrounding the departures of former board members Dr. Dieter Gudel and Sebastian Harms, stating that the club simply could no longer afford them despite their solid work. That explanation drew immediate skepticism from the floor, where members questioned whether the board had ever approached the outgoing directors about taking pay cuts. While the supervisory board claimed such talks occurred, HL-SPORTS reported that no wage reduction discussions ever took place, and that parting ways with Gudel and Harms had already been decided behind closed doors the previous winter.

The friction boiled over during the open discussion segment as members of the marginalized Halunken faction and other supporters pressed the podium with sharp questions about preferential treatment. Frustration mounted when executive board members repeatedly deferred to the supervisory board, which similarly lacked clear answers regarding why the UKL was permitted to return to the Pappelkurve while other groups remained locked out. Ehrenrat chairman Wolfgang Piest took control of the podium amid the chaos, warning the UKL that they do not own the club and must cease claiming otherwise.

Despite the contentious atmosphere, the assembly produced several administrative decisions. Members voted 146 to 134 against discharging the supervisory board, delivering a formal expression of no-confidence. By contrast, the executive board survived the vote with 155 in favor, 100 against, and eight abstentions. Former professional player Maximilian Ahlschwede provided a rare bright spot for the leadership by winning election to the supervisory board with 222 votes, filling the seat left vacant by Carsten Abbe’s summer resignation. Mario Groß was subsequently named substitute supervisory board member with 226 votes.

Closing out the marathon session, Piest addressed the club’s internal divisions and the symbolic nature of the supervisory board’s rejected discharge. He maintained that the organization’s broader membership of roughly 2,000 remains fundamentally sound despite the deep polarization between specific factions. Piest insisted that the vote carried no legal weight regarding regulatory breaches and vowed that the leadership would push forward toward athletic recovery, echoing the sentiment of his colleagues that the club must utilize its current momentum to climb back upward.