Image: GEPA pictures/ Walter Luger
After the resignation of Gerhard Milletich as ÖFB President, the football association has to reposition itself today at the presidium meeting in Graz. For many observers, that will not be enough. What is needed is a change in the statutes with a disempowerment of the state presidents, who have the say in the presidency of the largest sports association. Not necessarily for the good of local football.
In the series of critics of the ÖFB, the interest group of Austrian football referees has now also pointed out. A far-reaching structural reform and the end of voluntary work in the ÖFB leadership are being called for. “It is high time – not only as an IG referee, but as a sports public in general – to show the ÖFB the red card”according to the IG Referee, which has two former Bundesliga referees as chairmen, Harald Ruiss and Manfred Schüttengruber.
Lowest common denominator
However, the (overdue) structural reform is likely to be a side issue at today’s Executive Committee meeting. First of all, the ÖFB will have to reposition itself after Milletich’s resignation. An interim president is to be elected from among the Vice Presidents Gerhard Götschhofer (Upper Austria), Josef Geisler (Tyrol), Johann Gartner (Lower Austria) and Philip Thonhauser (Bundesliga Supervisory Board Chairman). Since Götschhofer and Geisler are assigned to the uncomfortable Milletich critics and Thonhauser as a Bundesliga man can hardly be chosen by the state officials, the 71-year-old Gartner, who has supported Milletich for a long time, is likely to take over the leadership of the association in the meantime. Not as a real ideal solution, but rather as the lowest common denominator.
Source: Nachrichten
