The next scandal in FC Luzern: The club management files a criminal complaint against Alpstaeg because of a share deal. But the club owner is also taking legal action against the executive floor. The tragedy in Central Switzerland brings dubious events to light.
The “Wirtschaft zum Schützenhaus” next to the Luzerner Arena is not a place for reflection at the AGM of FC Luzern’s holding company on Wednesday.
FC St. Gallen is proud of how closed its management system is, how little or nothing leaks out. Board members can pat themselves on the back. Well done. And as an alternative, they can put forward the locally anchored FC Luzern, which would so much like to follow in the footsteps of East Swiss harmony.
But he can’t, because he now finds himself in a “business thriller”. That’s what is now called what has been twining and bickering around FC Luzern for weeks. The ongoing power struggle has become so great that almost nothing can be ruled out
The most recent act was written on Wednesday evening, at the general meeting of FC Luzern’s holding company, which resulted in a scandal and renewed blame. The club owner Bernhard Alpstaeg actually wanted to dismiss the board of directors. But since the club because of a previous stock trade filed a criminal complaint against Alpstaeg and deleted half of his stake from the share register, he lost his majority. The Board of Directors of the Holding with President Stefan Wolf and Vice-President Josef Bieri therefore remained in office.
Alpstaeg puts the losses by 2025 at over 30 million
Immediately afterwards, Alpstaeg brought out the heavy artillery. In the communiqué written by the communications agency of Zurich resident Sacha Wigdorovits, he accused the club’s management of “serious mismanagement” and “pure smear theatre”. In addition, Alpstaeg announces that it will sue the club management because of their “winding moves” at the general meeting.
He paints the “threatening end” of FC Luzern with numbers on the wall: CHF 7.1 million loss this season, 13.6 and 12.1 in the following years, which according to Adam Riese results in 32.8 million. According to Alpstaeg, the board of directors announced this, “as the largest shareholder and fan of the FCL, I cannot stand by and watch”.
Criminal charges here, criminal charges there: FC Luzern is currently dismembering itself, so to speak, under the Christmas tree. Meanwhile, the lawyers are rubbing their hands.
In times of need, those involved cry out for help, which are made public through various channels. The instrumentalization is not far away either. FC St. Gallen had experienced the same thing in the era before President Matthias Hüppi, before 2018, when a group had spread in the club that tried to exclude the former President and financier Dölf Früh.
FC Luzern’s suffering has actually lasted for more than a decade. The longer the crisis lasts, the deeper it goes, especially as more and more details and inconsistencies about clandestine transactions, obscure holdings and personal entanglements come to light. football business, yes.
FC Luzern’s path is full of thorns
FC Luzern will move into its new stadium in 2011. The arena subsequently becomes the source of disruption, when in fact it should represent sheer luck. That much can be recorded at the end of 2022.
FC Luzern rubs shoulders with majority shareholder Bernhard Alpstaeg, the patron of the Swisspor company, whose name the football stadium bears. Alpstaeg is a power man who gets what he is denied as an entrepreneur in insulation technology: attention. Alpstaeg is an old-school leader who holds power at the club and the stadium. He owns everything in Lucerne football. Also the “Wirtschaft zum Schützenhaus” next to the stadium.
Majority shareholder Bernhard Alpstaeg is leaving the GV of the club holding company on Wednesday evening, taking special precautions.
He cleverly acquired the majority in the club and in the stadium, say the few who support him. Numerous critics counter that he stole power, misled fellow campaigners and moved legally in a gray area.
In an “Advent Blog”, the anti-Alpstaeg popular movement “zäme more than 52%” rolls up the Lucerne fate in a kind of Advent calendar. Day after day, Christmas is the end. In some cases, contexts are described behind the individual doors in a calm and non-polemical tonality and documents are presented that afterwards make your eyes burn and your ears wiggle. There are well-documented insiders at work.
“The boil has burst. It stinks and is not nice to look at,” says a person who has deep insight into the dossiers.
Walter Stierli and Alpstaeg link up
The former club president Walter Stierli and Alpstaeg have considerable merit in the realization of the new stadium. Stierli brought people together, brought shareholders on board and raised capital. How much by whom is not shown. Alpstaeg acquired the naming rights of the stadium. According to the “Advent Blog”, not for a million per year, but for half a million, which had to be earmarked for the value of the property.
Stierli linked up with Alpstaeg and turned things around with him, at the end of which Stierli was eliminated and Alpstaeg gained the majority. Not only in the club, but also in the stadium.
FC Luzern is small and an ideal terrain for conflicts of interest. The law firm Studhalter, located on Strandstrasse in Lucerne, near Lake Lucerne, handled the controversial share transfer from Stierli to Alpstaeg.
Philipp Studhalter wore various hats at FC Luzern
Philipp Studhalter is now President of the Swiss Football League. In 2015 he became Stierli’s successor in Lucerne. At that time, the lawyer was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the holding company, soon afterwards CEO of FC Luzern, so to speak, and always Bernhard Alpstaeg’s legal advisor. Studhalter represented the club and at the same time the financier. The lawyer helped Alpstaeg to the majorities they had hoped for – first in FC Luzern and later in the stadium. Today Studhalter is silent about it.
His brother Alexander has come up in connection with Russian clientele, although the role of the league president in this case remains unclear. Studhalter’s father is close to Alpstaeg and apparently exerted pressure via Alpstaeg when his son wanted to become president of the Swiss Football League at the end of 2021. FC Luzern initially did not support its former boss because the club did not want to lose its seat and thus its direct influence on the committee when the “Luzerner Wahl Studhalter” was due. But Alpstaeg prevailed.
Today’s league president Philipp Studhalter used to sit on both sides of the negotiating table at FC Luzern.
That was the beginning of the patron’s attempts at printing, the “start of a cascade”, as they say. He demanded the dismissal of sporting director Remo Meyer, he tried to get involved with young player Ardon Jashari; he publicly called for the dismissal of the entire management team in the “Blick”.
FC Luzern is shaken by the Alpstaeg fate, by an ego circus that overshadows a lot. But FC Luzern also offers the story of a lot of money, the millions that have to be injected again and again in Swiss club football.
Alpstaeg initially received shares for CHF 0
The first block of shares (26 percent) was given to Alpstaeg at the time. In general, it is strange who receives how many shares in FC Luzern over the years, when and at what price. With the entry of new shareholders, money in the tens of millions is raised, money that then melts away again. When Stierli retires in 2018, he sells his stake – bypassing the other shareholders – to Alpstaeg (0.5 million for 25 percent), who thus gains the majority.
Stierli bills the club for a “reclaim” (0.4 million) and would like four places in the stadium as honorary president “for life”.
The paper was written by the law firm Studhalter. It is explicitly noted that the media may only be informed of the fact of Stierli’s departure, but not of any monetary amounts. Like there’s something to hide. When an external audit was initiated in 2015 after various inconsistencies in the room, it at least came to the conclusion that cash flows “should not be evaluated in the interests of equal investors”. That is the background to the long-standing dispute in the Lucerne shareholder base. Stierli with Alpstaeg and Studhalter here, the other donors there.
Anyone who plows through the files of FC Luzern comes across strange companies, holdings and strange purchases and sales. Sometimes the names behind the new companies are concealed, sometimes the deeper meaning of the money flows only becomes apparent after the fourth consultation. In any case, one thing is certain: there stinks and stinks a lot.
The Tantrum by Alex Frei
Swiss football means a need for money, but also the constant hope of money from player transfers. Suddenly not only Studhalter sat at the negotiating table with several hats in Lucerne, but also other protagonists. The key question is not only for Alpstaeg what served FC Luzern – and what personal interests. FC Luzern is a case for the psychologist. And for the judiciary.
At the end of 2014, sports director Alex Frei left FC Luzern. It was an inglorious departure, he broke at the task and at the intrigues in the club, which he described in a fit of rage behind closed doors as a “snake’s nest”. In parting, he said internally: “You have everything in Lucerne to become the third force in Swiss football. But that never, never, never happens as long as Stierli and Alpstaeg are on board.”