After 15 years the money starts to stink
Putin brought war to Ukraine
He is aiming for “demilitarization and denazification” in Ukraine, said Russian President Putin on Thursday morning. It’s the beginning of the invasion. Supposedly only military bases and infrastructure are to be attacked. In fact, it doesn’t stop there.
FC Schalke 04 removes the Gazprom lettering from the jersey. This seems self-evident given the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but is nevertheless a strong sign of the new club management. The deal is existential for the club and its employees.
An Thursday morning, Schalke coach Dimitrios Grammozis appeared at the press conference in a training jacket without the logo of main sponsor Gazprom. At the same time, the second division announced a fundamental statement with regard to further dealings with the main sponsor.
This happened a few hours later: the lettering of the Russian state-owned company, which has been emblazoned on the Schalke jersey since 2007, will disappear.
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This may be a matter of course for many who have been demanding this in the past few days after the Russian army invaded Ukraine. It’s also true: Schalke’s reaction is only logical against the background of the events. Nevertheless, it is a courageous step with which the club shows its colors in a very difficult situation. Because moving away from Gazprom also means endangering one’s own existence. And that of a number of employees.
Because the brutal truth is: Schalke is dependent on grants from Gazprom. The club is in debt with 200 million euros. There was already a threat of insolvency last spring, when the corona pandemic caused a significant drop in sales and there were signs of relegation from the Bundesliga. It could only be averted by drastic austerity measures.
Gazprom transfers nine million euros
The salary budget for the team was reduced from just under 110 million euros in 2021 to just over 20 million. The insolvency was just averted with the help of a loan to secure operations, for which the state of North Rhine-Westphalia guarantees.
The hopes of getting out of this difficult situation were based not least on the fact that two important and long-standing partners also stayed on board in the second division: the Veltins brewery as the arena’s namesake – and Gazprom. The energy company transfers nine million euros a year. No second division club has ever received so much from a sponsor.
October 10, 2006: Clemens Tönnies and Vladimir Putin seal the Schalke deal
What: REUTERS
The Gazprom deal, which former supervisory board chairman Clemens Tönnies engineered in October 2006, has always been controversial. But for a long time, Schalke followed the motto: money doesn’t stink. They gladly took the millions from Russia – even after Putin had fueled the Caucasus war in 2008, even after he illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
Tönnies was celebrated for the deal
At peak times, when Schalke played successfully in the Champions League, the club even collected up to 30 million euros a year. Only industry leader Bayern Munich had a better endowed advertising contract. Tönnies, who has long been history at Schalke, was celebrated for this deal.
But when the new Schalke club management, which has nothing to do with the Gazprom contract or the mismanagement of the past few years, removes the lettering from the players’ chests, that is a very strong sign. At least if she means it seriously and permanently. Because the club documents that it places peace and self-determination of the peoples above its own interests. In an extremely difficult situation.
Grammozis – Russian invasion “not just a background noise”
Schalke coach Dimitrios Grammozis is worried about the events in Eastern Europe. The actions of the Russian government affect the everyday life of the team and the environment of the club. Schalke has not yet commented on the heavily criticized partnership with Gazprom.
