MPlans for a documentary about the Bundesliga soccer club Hertha BSC, which have since been stopped, have further strained the tense relationship between the traditional Berlin club and investor Lars Windhorst with his Tennor Group. “The aim was to sell the film to streaming services such as Amazon in order to spice up Hertha as a brand internationally,” said Tennor spokesman Andreas Fritzenkötter of the German Press Agency on Wednesday about the project, of which “Sport Bild” ( Wednesday) had reported.
The production company Pulse Films with the award-winning director Lee Hicken and Hertha legend Axel Kruse as a link accompanied the team over a longer period of time and produced inner insights within the team and the environment. But some passages of the production, which was stopped last summer, did not please financier Windhorst, who invested around one million euros.
“In the passages, a member of the management described Mr. Windhorst as unsympathetic, and Windhorst was made fun of in the group,” Fritzenkötter explains the production stop, “the passages were not suitable for being shown in a commercial about Hertha.” Hertha herself did not want to comment on request.
Both parties could not agree on continuing the project under a new direction, which, according to Fritzenkötter, sealed the end of the film: “We then weighed it up: editing is practically impossible and costs additional money. Then we’ll leave it.” Disturbances in dealings between the club and the investor constantly accompany the partnership, which surprised Fritzenkötter from the beginning: “We didn’t think and were surprised that Hertha would slam the doors after we got involved.”
Started to set up an energetic team with 375 million euros from the investor, Hertha is in the relegation rank with 23 points before the 26th matchday, one point before the first relegation zone – class struggle instead of “Big City Club”. Fritzenkötter classifies the theater around the concept of the big capital club differently and also documents a certain disagreement along the way: “It is always claimed that the term ‘Big City Club’ comes from Windhorst. The management of Hertha or the agency commissioned by Hertha first spoke of the Big Club in the investor brochure before Tennor joined.”
Fritzenkötter considers the next meeting of the members to be suitable for smoothing out the many inconsistencies in the relationship between the two parties: “The next general meeting is in May. Something will definitely have to happen there.”
The Hertha BSC executive committee reacted angrily to Fritzenkötter’s statements. “On the one hand, we do not consider this route via the public to be expedient. On the other hand, unspecific allegations and insinuations were repeatedly made,” said a statement by the executive committee on the association’s website on Wednesday evening. “These not only damage the reputation of Hertha BSC, but also the investment by Tennor Holding.”
