Speaking to Raphael Honigstein of The Athletic, Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke spoke on the new DFL investor deal, Edin Terzic as well as Dortmund potentially overtaking Bayern Munich. Read the complete interview here.
One of the big talking points of the first half of the season was Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga clubs voting in favour of a deal that would allow investors into the league. Watzke has been one of the big supporters of the deal before it was passed.
When asked about the the impact of it, Watzke said: “The concrete figures, and conditions, are still to be negotiated. But I’m certain that we can make up ground in terms of the international marketing of the league with a deal like that. Can we close the gap between us and a club like Man City or PSG? No chance at all. That’s not the intention, anyway.”
Watzke then emphasised on how it may benefit the league: “Building streaming offerings and investing in international marketing will help make the Bundesliga more popular and accessible abroad. It helps us to compete financially with the Italians and the Spanish, who have the same problems as us. And it can help us to distribute the story of the unique German football. There’s one exceptional league: the Premier League.
It exists on a whole different planet in terms of revenue streams and has a very different historical background and the advantage of the English language. It’s a fantastic competition, even if that famous atmosphere in the grounds isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. We can’t just say we don’t care about what’s going on around us.
On the contrary, the special Bundesliga story, its clubs, its strong connection to the fans, its spectacular atmosphere, needs to be told abroad. I found it remarkable to see PSG and Newcastle fans thanking us on huge banners for the socially-minded pricing of our away tickets. People abroad do notice these things. But in the first place, they have to see and to know us.”
On a broader scale, the new Champions League format has proven to be disliked by a lot of fans ahead of the change of format next season, Watzke is seemingly a fan of the new format, which will take the form of a ‘Swiss League’: “…Take the new Champions League format. I like it a lot more than the old one, which I frankly found a bit dull. It had gone a bit stale. You knew straight after the draw who would get through.
Take the group of Man City, RB Leipzig, Young Boys and Red Star Belgrade. You didn’t have to play a single game to know the ranking. It will be different next year. I don’t see many protests against it outside Germany. A lot of supporters say they don’t like it but if you speak to some of them for 10 minutes, they don’t really know what it’s about. I find the new model interesting. We can’t always reject everything only because it’s new.”
The role of Edin Terzic was also brought up in the interview, Dortmund have brought in Nuri Șahin and Sven Bender to help the manager in the second half of the season after a poor first half.
On how the new arrivals change Terzic’s role, Watzke said: “The emphasis is now on him being truly a head coach. Before that, it felt to me as if he was doing everything himself on the training pitch. If you’re directly involved in the exercises, you can miss a lot. There’s a reason why military commanders used to watch battles from mountaintops rather than throw themselves into the fight.
Edin is building his setup. If we lose the next four games, people will of course say, “What a great job you did there.” But I’ve been doing this for 19 years. I was 17th in the table at Christmas with Klopp in 2014, and I experienced two real crises, at the beginning in 2005 and Covid, which saw us lose €151million. This type of crisis, we can handle. Which is why I’m not as nervous as some who are close to the club.”
To round off the interview, Watzke was asked about Dortmund even want to stop being the second team in Germany behind Bayern Munich.
“We had no real chance before 2011, but did it anyway. It can happen, when we use the momentum of a positive situation. Dortmund, as a club, are able to generate extraordinary energy,” said Watzke.
“We wouldn’t even be discussing this question if we hadn’t been stupid enough to not win our last game against Mainz. So it is possible. But not every year. Bayern need to be below their best and we need to perform exceptionally well. Otherwise, they will win every year because they are €150million to €200m per year ahead of us in terms of wages.
That translates into about 10 world-class players. If you’re asking me whether we can close that financial gap, I’d say no. Munich is in Bavaria. Dortmund is in North Rhine-Westphalia, and is not even the capital of the region. We could close the gap if we brought in an Arab-state fund, but we are accountable to our members and they don’t want it. We accept that.”
GGFN | Jack Meenan
