Women’s promoter with pithy sayings: This is the new ÖFB President

After the resignation of President Gerhard Milletich, Austria’s Football Association (ÖFB) will be headed by Johann Gartner on an interim basis with immediate effect.

The president of the Lower Austrian Association (NÖFV) was entrusted with this function during a presidium meeting in Graz on Friday. The 71-year-old is rising from ÖFB Vice President to “temporary boss”.

A new President is then to be elected at an Extraordinary General Meeting in May or June.

“Some may lack intelligence”

Gartner has been associated with football for a long time and has gained a lot of experience as an official in the Lower Austrian association. From 1990 to 2012 he worked on the NÖFV board, from 2002 also as its president. After a break of several years, he took up the post of head of one of the nine ÖFB state organizations again in April 2016 and has not given up to this day. The Lower Austrian also repeatedly made headlines with interview statements that raised a lot of dust.

That was the case in October 2017, for example, when Gartner revealed to the media on the day of the World Cup qualifier against Moldova in Chisinau (1-0) that there was group formation within the ÖFB national team and that star player David Alaba did not follow the guidelines of Team boss Marcel Koller held.

That wasn’t enough, Gartner said shortly afterwards in the “NÖN” when asked about the criticism of players like Julian Baumgartlinger, Marc Janko or Marko Arnautovic about the dismissal of Koller: “Some overshot the mark. Some may lack intelligence.” An apology followed.

At the time, the saying that the decision to end the era of ÖFB sports director Willi Ruttensteiner “consciously chose the path away from science and back to football” also caused a stir. Gartner also publicly described the Upper Austrian Ruttensteiner as a “senior teacher”. As far as external communication is concerned, some things could have gone better.

Promoter of women’s football

Gartner’s work in women’s football went very well. In Lower Austria, he promoted this area like no other for a long time, and the official has also been the chairman of girls’ and women’s football in the ÖFB for years.

As a result, Gartner was also present at the 2022 Women’s European Championship in England, in which Irene Fuhrmann’s ÖFB selection only ended in the quarter-finals against Germany, as the head of the delegation – usually equipped with a cap – in the team quarters.

Gartner has not only made a name for itself in the sports sector. At the political level, the ÖVP man worked for a total of 20 years until 2020 as mayor of his home market town of Ziersdorf in the Hollabrunn district. The qualified electrical engineer and father of two has been club president at home SV Ziersdorf since 2015.