After voting on DFL investor
Martin Kind urgently needs to explain himself
December 12, 2023, 6:09 p.m
This is exactly how the DFL plan to raise fresh money through an investor achieved the necessary majority. But in the aftermath, the secret vote raises more and more questions. Because statements suggest that Martin Kind voted differently for Hannover 96 than the club requested.
In the debate about voting behavior in the upcoming investor deal for German professional football, Hannover 96 is threatened with another rift. The parent association reserves the right to take action against the majority shareholder Martin Kind. “If it turns out that people acted contrary to instructions, we have to think about it internally,” said a board member of the parent club.
The club, which was at odds with Kind’s side, had instructed the 79-year-old to vote against the deal. After the names of the clubs with no votes have become known, there are great doubts as to whether Kind had done this. The required two-thirds majority was only achieved with 24 yes votes (10 no votes and 2 abstentions).
According to information from the German Press Agency, only 1. FC Cologne, Union Berlin and SC Freiburg from the Bundesliga voted against it. From the 2nd league, six no votes in the secret vote came from FC St. Pauli, Fortuna Düsseldorf, Hertha BSC, 1. FC Nürnberg, 1. FC Magdeburg and Eintracht Braunschweig, the seventh according to the “Bild” newspaper on 1. FC Kaiserslautern. Lautern did not comment when asked. Bundesliga club FC Augsburg and second division club VfL Osnabrück abstained.
If this information corresponds to the actual voting behavior, all ten no votes would be distributed as well as the two abstentions – and Kind would obviously have voted “yes” for Hannover 96 and ignored the club’s corresponding instructions.
Disputes between the child and the parent club have been going on for years
“Basically, we have asked Mr. Kind in writing to take a stand and the answer is still pending,” said the board member. Kind and the club’s capital side did not want to comment. The 96 boss had already referred to the secret ballot after the vote on Monday.
It is unclear whether the investor deal could even be overturned. The parent club has no right of action under association law, although other clubs could challenge the decision. The club’s chairman Sebastian Kramer explained to “Bild” that due to the eV’s lack of clarity with 50+1, “this decisive vote may now have enabled a result that would please the DFL.”
Child and the parent club look back on a long dispute. In the complicated structure of Hannover 96, Kind is on the capital side, while his opponents have been at the top of the 96 eV since 2019. The dispute is primarily about how to deal with the 50+1 rule in Hanover. This is intended to ensure that the parent clubs retain the right to issue instructions even if they have spun off their professional football division into a corporation. “The situation is only there now because the DFL has not moved on the issue of ensuring the right to give instructions in Hanover for a year. Because this right to give instructions was not observed by Mr. Kind on several occasions,” the board member continued.
The parent club had already failed against Kind in several courts and was not allowed to remove the long-time club boss as managing director of the outsourced professional football operation. The eV tried this in July 2022.