“Nonsense” – investor Windhorst bickers with fan club on Twitter
The nerves at Hertha BSC are on edge. Crashing into a relegation zone, changing coaches – and now investor Lars Windhorst is also fighting with a fan club on Twitter. It’s about a week-old tweet. The focus: the commitment of Jürgen Klinsmann.
Hertha BSC is currently astonishing experts and fans in many ways. On the field, in terms of transfers and communication – and also with behavior on social media. Especially on Twitter.
Michael Preetz is still the sporting director of Hertha BSC on his account – although he hasn’t been since January 2021. The club separated from him due to lack of success. Neither he nor Hertha seems to be interested in his account with over 200,000 followers. The last post is from the end of 2020.
Lars Windhorst is quite active on Twitter compared to Preetz. The entrepreneur, who has invested around 375 million euros in Hertha through his Tennor group of companies since 2019, quarreled with a fan club there on Sunday – on the day of the dismissal of coach Tayfun Korkut, whose successor Felix Magath saved the club from relegation from the Bundesliga target. Windhorst responded to a tweet that was several weeks old, triggering discussions.
45-year-old Lars Windhorst owns 64.7 percent of the club’s KGaA
What: pa/dpa/Christophe Gateau
On February 16, the Hertha fan club “Axel Kruse Jugend”, which claims to belong to an official Hertha fan club and is looked after by the members of the board, wrote on its Twitter channel: “Who, according to Lars Windhorst, is to blame for the fact that the millions somehow always gone: tax offices, public prosecutors, auditors, BaFin (Federal Financial Supervisory Authority; Editor’s note.) and Hertha BSC.”
And further: “It’s funny how Windhorst always put it like Hertha had burned all the money. At least half of them are gone because he made the wrong decision: Jürgen Klinsmann.”
Background: The 45-year-old Windhorst (owns 64.7 percent of the shares in KGaA) brought Jürgen Klinsmann to the supervisory board in November 2019. Klinsmann later became the coach of the Berliners before announcing his immediate resignation on Facebook after just ten competitive games.
Windhorst obviously didn’t want to let the fan club’s Twitter message sit – even if it was almost a month late. On Sunday, he responded to the tweet: “…just read this and am amused and at the same time appalled at the nonsense you are spouting. On November 24th, 2019 after the Augsburg debacle (0:4, editor’s note) Mr. Preetz called me and informed me that he wanted to persuade Jürgen Klinsmann…”
Jürgen Klinsmann quickly gave up as a coach at Hertha. He took office on November 27, 2019 and announced his immediate resignation on February 11, 2020 on Facebook
Source: AFP via Getty Images / ODD ANDERSEN
Windhorst continued: “He wanted Klinsmann to fly from Los Angeles to Berlin immediately and step in as the new coach and asked me if I could help convince Klinsmann.”
Even before the Twitter Zoff, Windhorst was more often the center of attention, among other things because of the power struggle between him and the Hertha bosses and the discontinued documentation that he commissioned himself.
Most recently, the investor also admitted to regretting his Hertha entry – he is dissatisfied with how his money was (wasted) used. In the business magazine “Capital” he answers the question of whether the investment in Hertha was a mistake: “To be honest, from today’s perspective yes, unfortunately. So far, investing in Hertha (…) has only brought me disadvantages.” Windhorst continued: “I won’t let anyone burn me 375 million euros there and I will never give up.”
