Saturday 19th June 2021
It’s getting tight for Hopp
Hoffenheim and Curevac – problems everywhere
By Stephan Uersfeld
The European Championship has still not arrived in Germany. The casual fans wait for the starting shot, the active ones deal with the Curevac failure. It’s about linking vaccine and soccer. Your argument with “benefactor” Hopp is not over yet.
Walk through Berlin-Gesundbrunnen. The asphalt shimmers. Hardly anyone dares to take to the streets. Some pubs did not survive the lockdown, others are hesitantly preparing for the upcoming European Championship games. The hosts place their televisions. A few guests drink their first beers and in a backyard in the Soldiner Kiez people are busy decorating. For years there have been big parties for the big tournaments on every matchday in Germany. The neighborhood meets, for a small contribution to solidarity there is food and drinks.
Then all the people who lived in this inhospitable part of the capital sit together. Germans, Arabs, Thais, Africans. Later they paint a house wall. It is her memory. But this year, in this heat, in this pandemic, everything is a little more sedate. The wall is not yet painted. And whether that will still happen depends on the German team. Back on the road. Hardly any flags. Every now and then a Turkish flag, sometimes a German flag. But the teams that dominate here have so far offered little cause for euphoria. The European Championship has still not reached hearts.
This is where casual fans differ from those who watch their team’s every game. Be it Borussia Dortmund, FC Bayern Munich or FC Schalke 04. The football system is in crisis. That was often negotiated. The megalomaniac European Championship in the midst of the pandemic, the arrogance with which UEFA is beating the host countries and the United Kingdom is now threatening to withdraw the finals because the VIPs could miss the finals due to the quarantine regulations, continues to cause massive misunderstanding. Even with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He doesn’t want to be put under pressure. “Public health must be a priority,” said the in response to UEFA’s demands. “We will do everything that is necessary to protect the country from Covid.”
The enemy Hopp
Rather, the active fans are looking forward to returning to the stadium, maybe even at the start of the new season. Nobody can say that right now, but everyone can dream. Just like Dietmar Hopp, who once dreamed of the best vaccine against the coronavirus. This will not happen for the time being. Because Curevac, the company in which the 81-year-old holds shares, had to take a serious setback these days. That moves parts of the football fans more than any European championship. Therefore: Call the lawyer Dr. Andreas Hüttl.
This is how the Hanoverian had his experiences with Dietmar Hopp. His attempts to summon the Hoffenheim majority shareholder as a witness in a trial brought against Dortmund fans by Hopp came to nothing. He was told that they had no address for summons. Once, Hüttl saw the patron at the St. Leon-Rot Golf Club. But never in court. If you want to understand the present, you have to look back. Therefore a short summary:
Hopp, who led his hometown club TSG Hoffenheim from the lowlands of the amateur leagues to the Bundesliga with his capital, is seen as a red rag for many football fans. For them, the Hoffenheim patron was and is a symbolic figure for the slow erosion of the 50 + 1 idea in German football. For years he was exposed to insults from the corners. They received more and less attention in the media, but they have been a constant since Hoffenheim’s promotion to the Bundesliga in 2008. The SAP co-founder reacted thinly at times, drawing fans to court. Sometimes it seemed arbitrary.
Shortly before the first lockdown, the situation spiraled out of control in late February 2020. The DFB had blocked Borussia Dortmund for the misconduct of their fans during their appearances in Hoffenheim. In the following weeks, other fan groups showed solidarity with the Dortmunders and at the end of February there were interruptions in the game in the German stadiums, with the unworthy climax in Sinsheim. There Hoffenheim and Bayern professionals played the ball after a long break in the game. It was 6-0 for Bayern.
“Gesture of the Year”
Outside, Hopp and Bayern boss Karl-Heinz Rummenigge applauded, in the stands the commentator from a pay TV station. A tabloid later said: That was the gesture of the year. The fans shook their heads. But the protest fell silent. It was a pandemic. Different times, different worries. Nationwide, the ultra-groups, branded by parts of the public as “so-called fans”, organized aid campaigns for the risk groups who are now entrenched in their apartments.
Dietmar Hopp now also took care of other things. With the Tübingen-based company Curevac, he had a hot iron in the race for the vaccine against the coronavirus. Hopp is also the majority owner of Curevac, like Hoffenheim, in which he holds 96 percent of the shares. The hostility against him, the abandonment of matches in German football were still fresh when the virus pressed for a break and there was only one topic left. Hopp mixed sport and a pandemic. He gave the sports broadcaster Sport 1 interviews about his dispute with the then US President Donald Trump. The had supposedly wanted to secure the vaccine exclusively for the USA. He received kudos from politics. Germany is “not for sale,” said Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier. “Hopp was the double savior back then. He stood up to the Americans. The research held here. But now it seems very much like a large-scale PR strategy,” says Doctor Hüttl, the lawyer trusted by the fans.
“The Benefactor of All Mankind”
Despite his passion for the vaccine and the corona-related break in the Bundesliga, Hopp returned to sport. In addition to his interviews with Sport 1, his words were also reflected in the ZDF sports studio. There he was reading from a teleprompter while sitting in the golf club. His club, TSG Hoffenheim, also got involved. On March 15th, 2020 they gave Hopp space on their Twitter account. They shared a quote from a “Manager Magazin” interview. “If we can hopefully soon be able to develop an effective vaccine against the coronavirus, it should be able to reach, protect and help people not only regionally, but in solidarity around the world,” said Hopp. As it now turns out, the vaccine that should become the best will not help for the time being. It only has a preliminary effectiveness of 47 percent. But the billionaire remains “rock solid” convinced. He also wants to remain as an investor. Karl Lauterbach, on the other hand, says: “Curevac will no longer play a role.” The reports about the Curevac failure are now also of interest to football fans. Not because they are pleased about the possible failure of a vaccine, but because of the height of the fall that Hopp created through his actions.
“He said, ‘I am the benefactor of football and I am also the benefactor of all humanity.’ This link between football and vaccine is of course stupid for him. It’s unspeakable. When spectators come back, the protests will continue to boil, “says Hüttl.
His investment in football, his undisputed passion for his home club TSG Hoffenheim is currently being put to the test by surprising sources. At the beginning of the month, the domestic fan scene clearly criticized “Sun King” Hopp after he was in a power struggle with the long-time managing director Dr. Peter Görlich had enforced and recalled the man from the region. Görlich was one of the critics of Hopp’s long-standing and controversial collaboration with player agent Roger Wittmann and his agency Rogon. Together they should hold shares in a Brazilian club.
The walk continues. Hardly anyone in Humboldthain wears a T-shirt. The heat continues. When the Swedes’ game against Slovakia kicked off, five people were sitting in front of a bar on Voltastrasse. In Portugal against Germany there will be a few more. Football is no longer that important. Stories like that of Hopp play their small part in this.
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