“No pill or plastic club”
Bayer boss Carro is flirting with lifting 50+1
February 23, 2024, 3:32 p.m
In the dispute over the ultimately failed investor entry into the DFL, the 50+1 rule in German football is once again becoming a big topic. Bayer boss Fernando Carro is still critical of it because it restricts the clubs too much. He also raves about the “radiance” of his club.
Bayer Leverkusen’s managing director Fernando Carro has once again spoken out in favor of abolishing the 50+1 rule. “It would be good for German football not to have this general regulation,” said the 59-year-old in an interview with DAZN. The club boss of the Bundesliga table leader has often made critical comments about the rule in the past.
“I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be 50+1, but it should be up to each club whether they do it or not,” he demanded. Every club must “be able to decide for itself. But I’m also a democrat, and if the majority of German football wants this rule, then I’ll accept it.”
He doesn’t see Bayer as a pill or plastic club, but we are 100 percent a traditional club that perhaps has under-governance or is an exception to the 50+1 rule, said Carro. However, he knows “what appeal Bayer Leverkusen has internationally, as I sit on several committees with UEFA and ECA.”
Cartel Office examines 50+1 rule
The 50+1 rule came into focus again in the course of the discussion about the now-discarded plans for investors to join the German Football League (DFL). The voting behavior of Martin Kind, managing director of the professional department of Hannover 96, who is said to have defied the parent club’s instructions, played a central role.
The Federal Cartel Office is currently examining the regulation. The DFL plans that, after an adjustment, more far-reaching conditions will apply in the future for the clubs TSG Hoffenheim, Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Wolfsburg, which have already been granted exceptions. Final legal certainty regarding the investor clause, which guarantees the parent clubs a majority in the professional departments, is still pending.
The Werkself is majority owned by the Bayer Group, which the Federal Cartel Office has criticized in the past: “This raises doubts about the suitability of the overall regulation for organizing a fair, club-driven competition,” said a statement in 2021 regarding the three clubs with exceptions. “If some clubs have greater opportunities to raise equity than others, this is unlikely to contribute to the balance of sporting competition, but rather distort it,” explained the cartel office.