Football Bundesliga
Uncertainty in Wolfsburg: The VW crisis and VfL
Europe’s largest car manufacturer VW is threatened with the closure of plants and the loss of thousands of jobs. There is great unrest in Wolfsburg. But what does this mean for the group’s football club?
The VfL Wolfsburg stadium is not only needed for the two home games against FC Augsburg (Saturday, 3:30 p.m./Sky) and Borussia Dortmund this week. The second round of negotiations between the ailing VW Group and the IG Metall union began on Wednesday in the Volkswagen Arena.
Plant closures, job cuts, billions in savings: these are the horror scenarios at stake. And the question also arises at VfL Wolfsburg: How does the major VW crisis affect the in-house football operations? How long will a company under austerity afford a football team that, despite the millions in support and despite the cup success against Dortmund, is currently only in 14th place in the Bundesliga table?
Volkswagen is only a sponsor of the German national team or Bayern Munich or is involved as a shareholder through its subsidiary Audi. However, VfL Wolfsburg- Fußball GmbH is itself a subsidiary of the group. He is its 100 percent shareholder.
At a meeting between club management and VfL employees in September, it was said that the donations from VW and the current contracts were not in danger. But exactly what will happen next cannot be said at this stage of the VW crisis.
“The entire VfL Wolfsburg- Fußball GmbH,” the club said in a statement, directs its daily actions towards making a contribution to VW’s major savings program. “As a subsidiary of Volkswagen, it has always been our aim to use the resources made available to us efficiently and cost-effectively.” This applies “particularly in light of current developments”.
The club’s communication currently does not go beyond this statement. However, both newspapers published in Wolfsburg report uncertainty among VfL employees. And from comments on Volkswagen’s intranet asking the question: Why does VW still afford “an expensive toy” like VfL, while at the same time thousands of jobs are threatened?
It hardly helped the club in this discussion that former player Max Kruse recently said on the TV show “Celebrity Big Brother” that Wolfsburg had “shoved money up his ass” during his second time at VfL.
Borussia Dortmund fans also held up several posters in Wolfsburg on Tuesday evening that read: “Save costs, end Wolfsburg sponsorship, preserve jobs, strengthen 50+1!”
Almost 80 million from VW
VfL Wolfsburg and the money from Volkswagen – there are essentially two agreements on this. A control and profit transfer agreement stipulates that the club must pass on all profits to its parent company if it sells a player like Kevin De Bruyne to Manchester City for 75 million euros. Conversely, VW also compensates for all of VfL’s losses – such as in the Corona period or after particularly unsuccessful years.
Every year, Volkswagen puts together its financial support, from jersey advertising to the naming rights to the stadium, into a kind of overall package. Years ago this was around 100 million euros, but was reduced significantly in 2017. Before this season, the group increased its donations for the first time – we are now talking about almost 80 million euros.
These are financial opportunities that are still out of reach for many Bundesliga clubs. On the other hand, just under 80 million euros from Volkswagen are no longer enough to compete with Champions League clubs like Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund.
VfL therefore changed its strategy under the sports directors Jörg Schmadtke and Marcel Schäfer and thus before the start of the major VW crisis. The club now primarily signs young players in order to develop them in Wolfsburg and sell them on at a high price.
Ideally, it works like it did for Micky van de Ven (Tottenham) and Lukas Nmecha (Dortmund), for whom the “Wolves” received a total of around 70 million euros. However, development has stalled again since 2021, also because the club spent a lot of money on players like Mattias Svanberg, Sebastiaan Bornauw and Vaclav Cerny, who have hardly helped them progress so far.
Leading VfL back into European Cup competition has been Ralph Hasenhüttl’s job since this year. And the coach told the “Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung” about the situation: “We as VfL Wolfsburg are part of Volkswagen. We are doing well when the group and its employees are doing well.” That’s not the case right now.
dpa
Source: Stern
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