On Friday afternoon, Serge Ahrens is busy helping to set up the VIP tent at the FV Illertissen sports facility. After all, he is the “board member for development and infrastructure” at the regional football league, a position that has just been created. And there is still some infrastructure to set up before this Sunday (3.30 p.m.) the second division team Fortuna Düsseldorf comes to the first round match in the DFB Cup in the Vöhlin Stadium (not named after a sponsor, but after the patrician family who once ruled the city).
Whereby the term stadium is basically grossly exaggerated: It is a football field with a running track and a tiny grandstand, the visiting fans will stand on the opposite side on a grassy hill. “The site is far too large for a game like this,” says Ahrens, “so we need a lot of security personnel.” More than a hundred security staff will be on duty.
That is also a cost factor, plus the VIP tent, the tubular steel towers for the TV cameras, additional catering stands. 5,000 spectators are allowed to come, 3,500 tickets were sold on Friday, the income is also shared between the two clubs – no plus would be expected from the game, just a lot of work. After all, there is the first-round entry bonus of around 200,000 euros. The Illertissers already know all this, they are there for the fourth time in ten years. You played against Eintracht Frankfurt in Augsburg (0:2), in neighboring Ulm against Werder Bremen (2:3 aet) and last year at your own stadium against 1. FC Heidenheim (0:2). Ahrens sees the image aspect rather than a major financial benefit: “Ultimately, you have to invest the money to present yourself to the region.”
So far, that hasn’t really worked out well despite the regular presence in the cup – an average of 335 visitors came to Illertissen’s league games last season in the Regionalliga Bayern, which means 16th place in the spectator table. This may also have something to do with the fact that the FVI has reached the upper limit of its possibilities for ten years: since the club on the border with Baden-Württemberg decided to switch from the Württemberg to the Bavarian Football Association in 2012 founding the Regionalliga Bayern, he is always at the top of the highest amateur league in Bavaria – and one of the regular cup participants. But the infrastructure prohibits the idea of the third division, which would be within reach in terms of sport. A move to Ulm would be out of the question, since this season there has already been a third division team in the traditional local club SSV 1846.
With the change of association, the rise of FV Illertissen continued rapidly, largely financed by the local entrepreneur Josef Kränzle (“high-pressure cleaners, industrial vacuum cleaners and hand sweepers – that’s the world of Kränzle”). Shortly before the turn of the millennium, the club was still playing in the district league before, with Kränzle’s support, league after league went up – fourth place in the Baden-Württemberg Oberliga allowed the club to be included in Bavaria’s regional league. And playing at the top is much easier in Bavaria than in the much more professional Regionalliga Südwest.
“Everyone looks over to Ulm, what league they play,” says Ahrens, “everyone sees the new multifunctional building in Memmingen.”
Kränzle is still a loyal sponsor, he always sits in the stands at home games, and his son Ludwig, who was on the board for a long time, often comes by. Others are now responsible there, such as Ahrens or Deputy CEO Sergio Pereira, an entrepreneur who is a “partner in temporary housing” in Ulm and other cities and is currently taking care of the signage and access routes in the stadium for Sunday. Ahrens and Pereira do not stick to the motto that you should see a doctor if you have visions, but have developed a “five-year plan”.
The post “Chief Development and Infrastructure” was not created to handle a DFB Cup game – but to shape the future. “Everyone looks over to Ulm, which league they play,” says Ahrens, “everyone sees the new multifunctional building in Memmingen” – at a regional league competitor. “We can’t sleep, we have to catch up,” says Ahrens. Otherwise, Illertissen has reached its sporting zenith: “There has to be more, that’s the way it is.”
They also want a multifunctional building like this in Illertissen – on the spot where the tiny, outdated grandstand is located. A much larger grandstand is to be added to the building, the running track is to be removed, standing steps are to be erected opposite where the Düsseldorf fans will be standing on the grass wall. Everyone suggests that within five years it will also go into the third division. The FVI is in exchange with the city that owns the stadium, the measures are to be financed through subsidies and sponsors, and an engineering office is currently examining the feasibility of the ideas.
“We have to ask ourselves: Is that all we want to achieve? Do we stop here?” asks Pereira and gives the answer himself: “If you stop, you lose.” By the end of the season at the latest, it should be determined what will be built and when. After all, the Illertissers have already achieved everything that is possible for them given the current circumstances. Although one thing is not yet: the second round of the DFB Cup.
