Always broke and without a license?: Hertha BSC stares in alarm at the end

Always broke and without a license?
Hertha BSC stares alarmed into the downfall

By Stephan Uersfeld, Berlin
05/10/2023, 7:21 p.m

The story of the crash of a megalomaniac has entertained the Bundesliga for years. But this one has been chosen. The DFL threatens Hertha BSC with the license withdrawal, sporting survival is uncertain, a turbulent general meeting is imminent. Can the club still be saved?

The atmosphere couldn’t have been better. Hertha BSC fans sat together in the old Berlin pub “Zum Hecht” on Stuttgarter Platz in Charlottenburg and celebrated their club’s first win under Pal Dardai last Saturday. The three points against VfB Stuttgart gave the bottom of the Bundesliga a reprieve in the relegation battle. Before the last three games, the club from the west end of Berlin is only three points behind the relegation rank. Hertha can still save herself. Three games, three wins and next year again in the first division? The blissful fans didn’t care.

“I’ll buy a season ticket again,” Knut Beyer called through the crowded bar. Beyer has been a Hertha fan since the 1970s. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Just again very. Another, just becoming a follower, grumbled happily. His new love ruined his weekend forever. “I used to ride my bike, I used to go on trips,” he said, “and now it’s always just Hertha.”

The club moves, but the future seems to be in bad shape. Once again, everything is at stake at Hertha before decisive days. The DFL speaks of the “worst case we’ve ever had” and, according to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, is considering whether the club can even be granted a license for the coming season. Because the debt is too high, because the new investor 777 Partners interferes too much. Because they are Hertha, those who are Hertha suspect. In the worst case, the regional league threatens. That’s fact.

“Hertha is in need of restructuring”

In the Bundesliga it’s Friday at 1. FC Köln (8.30 p.m./DAZN and in the ntv.de live ticker) for sheer survival and on Sunday the club can expect a turbulent general meeting. A year after taking office, the still new President Kay Bernstein is faced with a gigantic heap of broken glass. In epic breadth, the boulevard is already rolling out an application for a club member to be voted out. This is also available from ntv.de. The 30-page application culminates in anti-Semitic insinuations about the association’s sponsors and is discredited for that alone. Nevertheless, he is in the world and once again increases the excitement about the capital club.

The club management has long since admitted that Hertha BSC is in an exceptional economic situation. “The term ‘existential’ is not too high. Hertha is in need of restructuring,” Managing Director Thomas Herrich told the Süddeutsche Zeitung in mid-April. A deficit of more than 60 million euros is expected for the current season alone, and almost all of the liabilities of 90.8 million euros have to be settled this year. How this is to be done has not yet been finally clarified. As is usual in a “reorganization case”, there are also considerable savings in the office. The personnel budget must be significantly reduced. This cannot be achieved simply by reducing the costs for the licensed squad. Where there is so much movement, there are many people who are dissatisfied with their situation.

“Berliner Weg” is not (yet) successful

Cheered on by the capital’s press thirsty for scandals, the club faces a lot of resistance off the field as well. He hasn’t found a way to resist the constant stream of revelations all year. Information from inside the club has long since found its way back to the boulevard. Contrary to what had been hoped, the dedicated line could not be cut by the new club management. But while most of the revelations were at most regional in character, a report by the Financial Times even made international headlines. They revealed a spy scandal involving dubious investor Lars Windhorst.

His 374 million euros only made the squad worse and the club more broken, ultimately damaging his vision of the “Big City Club” Hertha BSC almost fatally. This vision reflected a cockiness that was extremely repellent and made the laughing stock of the nation with every further defeat. The good things that Hertha does have rarely found their way into the public eye. Windhorst was driven out of the club, the “Big City Club” was buried and, in the absence of alternatives, the “Berliner Weg”, one with a regional focus, was proclaimed. A new investor was found in 777 Partners. The US consortium went into the talks with the knowledge of Hertha’s financial difficulties and exhausted everything.

Again and again discord in the Hertha office

Everything that could go wrong went wrong on the pitch. The season started with two heavy downpours. The managing director at the time, Fredi Bobic, had already massively thinned out the squad. Almost every day someone moved somewhere. Unrest was the constant in the preparation. At Eintracht Braunschweig there was a first round defeat in the cup, the derby at Union Berlin was lost with a crash.

It only looked briefly as if Hertha could stop this trend with coach Sandro Schwarz. It didn’t work. Hertha was in a relegation battle for an entire season, evaluated short-term improvements as an upswing and parted ways with Schwarz much too late. For him came the eternal Pal Dardai. An internal solution. Like sporting director Benny Weber, who succeeded Fredi Bobic in January, who was fired in the final days of the winter transfer window. Bobic is still at odds with the club. He wants the salary he believes he is entitled to. A case for the courts and just a side story in this tumultuous season.

The recent shock news from the DFL headquarters via the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” caused quite a stir at the Hertha office this week. The club’s management reacted “very excitedly” to the report about a possible license withdrawal. Bernstein had already confirmed in mid-March when the new investor 777 Partners was presented that there were talks between the club and the league. At the time, however, he was in good spirits that he had addressed any problems in advance.

There are examples of Hertha’s club investors

The entry of 777 Partners itself had already raised enough new questions. Are the Miami investors acting like a classic start-up? So are they just waiting for the right moment to bid their football division to the highest bidder to an already established empire? This suspicion arose, among other things, from public discussions between the investor and the controversial Saudi owners of Newcastle United and also with the American consortium behind Chelsea FC. This would be made possible, among other things, by a relaxation of multi-club ownership proposed by UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin. A new trend in football where investors can keep numerous clubs at once and thus gain a competitive advantage.

Hertha BSC is not even the first club under multi-club ownership within the DFL. “New City Capital” with the Chinese-American investor Chien Lee also holds shares in clubs in England, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland in addition to shares in the second division club 1. FC Kaiserslautern. With David Blitzer, a US investor has already bought into the Bundesliga during the pandemic. In addition to FC Augsburg, in which he holds a 45 percent stake, his portfolio also includes clubs in England, Denmark, the USA and the Netherlands. The Red Bull case with its German figurehead Leipzig is well known and has long been accepted among the 36 league clubs.

The league still adheres to the 50+1 rule, but it has been eroded and questioned over the years. The pandemic of recent years acted as a fire accelerator. “If the viewers hadn’t come back,” said DFL interim boss Axel Hellmann on Monday at a panel discussion in Dortmund, “we wouldn’t have 50+1 anymore.” The situation has been so precarious for numerous clubs in the league in recent years, not just for Hertha BSC.

The DFL is also looking for an investor

As is so often the case, after the revelations in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the question is asked in the club environment as to why an example should always be made of Hertha BSC? Because that is the dominant feeling around the club, which is once again being dragged into the public eye in an extremely unfavorable situation with negative headlines. The DFL itself is looking for an investor. The fans of most Bundesliga clubs have been protesting for weeks. They fear the further sell-off of the league. The struggle with the new Hertha investors can also be understood as a signal that the league does not want to be dictated to the conditions. However, there is no concrete evidence for this.

At least the spectators returned to the unloved Olympic Stadium during this dark season, which will also be Hertha’s home ground in the years to come. The plans for the new stadium are patient. Still there is no certainty that Hertha will ever move out of the huge bowl. Everyone has now come to terms with the situation. With 52,471 spectators, Hertha has the fourth-highest average in the league and scratches the historic best from the 2011/2012 season. In that relegation year, a total of 908,630 spectators passed the stadium gates. With one game still to play, there are still 64,695 visitors missing from the relegation summit against VfL Bochum on the penultimate day of the league. Not a bad haul for the often mocked club.

When the last minutes of the game against VfB Stuttgart last Saturday began, coach Dardai gesticulated wildly on the sidelines, repeatedly pointing to the clock. It should just be over. Herthinho, Hertha’s mascot, stood behind him and Hertha fans were in the stands. Jessic Ngankam drove the ball towards the corner flag. He was playing for time. Referee Deniz Aytekin ended the drama. The relief was huge. The stadium sang about the one club it should always be – they sang about Hertha BSC and relieved the tension in their souls. However, the fateful days of the association had not yet begun at all. In the West End they look into a deep abyss.