“The FC Schalke 04 board of directors, with the agreement of the supervisory board, has decided to terminate the contract with Gazprom before its expiry,” the club announced on its website.
The club had already decided last week to erase the name and logo of Gazprom from its jerseys for the championship match on Saturday, two days after the Russian attack against Ukraine.
The partnership linking the club and the Russian company, whose majority shareholder is the Russian state and which has also sponsored the Champions League since 2012, ran until 2025. It was to bring in 9 million euros per year for Schalke , the club from the city of Gelsenkirchen, a former historical stronghold of football in the Ruhr basin, which fell back to the second division last year.
In the event of a rise in the Bundesliga, the contract provided for an increase in the allocation of up to 15 million per season.
“The financial capacity of the club is not affected by this decision”, assures Schalke, “the management of the club is confident of being able to present a new partner very soon”.
This weekend, the boss of Borussia Dortmund Hans-Joaquim Watzke, the neighboring club of Schalke (30 km separate the two stadiums) had hinted that he could provide financial assistance in the event of breach of contract with Gazprom.
“And if we must also appeal to the solidarity of other clubs in Germany, to help Schalke get out of this situation well, then we will have to discuss it”, had launched Mr. Watzke, currently acting co-president of the German Federation.
Thursday, a few hours after the announcement of the Russian attack against Ukraine, Matthias Warnig, the German CEO of the company operating the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline which links Russia to Germany, had resigned from the supervisory board. from Schalke, where he represented Gazprom, after being targeted by US sanctions.
After Moscow recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed pro-Russian “republics” in eastern Ukraine, Germany last week suspended the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.
The gas pipeline, at the heart of geopolitical and economic battles since its conception and whose construction has been completed since last fall, was not yet in service.
