Ulli Potofski buried in football urn: stars say goodbye

The sky over Gelsenkirchen showed gray on Friday morning when around 150 funeral guests gathered in the Beckhausen-Sutum cemetery. Ulli Potofski (1952-2025) was buried there. The sports reporter, who died on August 2 at the age of 73, found his last resting place on the Schalke fan field near the football stadium. Pictures show the urn in the form of a blue and white football, a last greeting to his heart club.

The funeral service started at 11:04 a.m. in the cemetery hall. The celebration was transferred to large screens for the fans outside the building that Schalkeblagen and scarves had brought with them. Among the guests were also numerous celebrities from the football and media world, including Hans-Joachim Watzke, CEO of Borussia Dortmund, and former sports moderator Werner Hansch. The Schalke family included sports director Frank Baumann and former players such as Olaf Thon, Gerald Asamoah and Mathias Schipper.

The media industry was represented by RTL reporter legend Ulrich Klose and the former sports presenter Ulrike von der Groeben (68). Esther Sedlaczek (39), with which Potofski had recently worked at Sky, also took part in the funeral.

Clemens Tönnies, former chairman of the supervisory board of Schalke 04, held the funeral speech. “I lose a good friend,” said Tönnies about the deceased.

The musical design of the celebration also reflected Potofski’s connection to the club: The organ played the Schalke anthem “Blau and knows how love I love you”. At the grave, the Steigerlied, an old song for Ruhr area mountain people. Nadja Bogdanovic, the partner of the deceased, kissed football before being let into the grave.

Born in Gelsenkirchen, he was a confessed Schalke fan and club member for a long time, and for a long time he also moderated the show “Auf Schalke”. He had started his career at the WDR in the 1970s, after which he developed the Bundesliga program “kick-off” at RTL. From 2006 he worked as a moderator and commentator for Sky.

At the end of the ceremony, the leading pastor Gedeon age also found suitable words: “If Ulli steps before God, he will only say: ‘Stand if you are a Schalke.'”

Ulrich Potofski died of leukemia in a Krefeld hospital on August 2.