Futbol fans, explain to me this Dietmar Hopp controversy

[Cobra Mgr]

What's the hubbub, bub?

[Déjà Bru]

Well, I'm sure you read this:

Hopp has been a lightning rod, especially in recent weeks, for some German fans who oppose the way he used his wealth to help Hoffenheim climb through the lower leagues to the Bundesliga with consecutive promotions more than a decade ago.

The questions would be how exactly that would have been done and whether the accusation is true to begin with. The tone of the article seems to support Hopp and blame unruly fans.

Except, what if it is true? Then the fans' actions would seem excusable, even admirable, as they take it upon themselves to police the sport they love.

It makes me wonder, and perhaps almost wish for, whether American baseball fans will ever take similar action if there were to be a recurrence of the Astros cheating scandal. As was mentioned in that thread, it seems to be getting somewhat of a whitewashing due to the amount of money involved making proper ballplayer punishment not feasible.

[dkgo]

Bayern has been outspending other clubs to win for decades. Apparently they are now mad that someone else is spending money

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

What's the hubbub, bub?

He used his considerable personal wealth to spend Hoffenheim from the fifth division up to the Bundesliga in a short amount of time.

Some of the criticism comes from the club itself having no real history from a village of about 3,500 and play their home matches in a larger town of around 35,000.

While this has been going on on other European leagues for several decades, in German football this kind of spending by a single person is much more unheard of.

Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg get some corporate funding from Bayer and Volkswagen respectively as those clubs were started by workers from those two companies and are owned by them.

Red Bull Leipzig also gets a lot of flak. The club was founded in 2009 for a place for Red Bull to put money into German football.
The club started off in the sixth division and has played in the Bundesliga for a while now.

Again this was something that was not common in German football.


I do not mind Hoffenheim or Leipzig personally and I think the fans being disruptive is an embarrassment.
A club can finance itself however it wishes as long as it meets the rules of the league.

And German football has one of the stricter financial policies in place.
Clubs cannot carry large debt unless they can prove faith by their creditors and prove they can get themselves out of it.

Contrast this with some Spanish and Italian clubs where the banks in those nations write them loans and then forgive them out of national pride.

[Westheim]

Soccerball fans in general are an embarassment...

When I first started watching baseball I marvelled at how everybody behaved nicely and nobody tried to beat each other to death in the stands, or burn the whole place to the ground...

[Cobra Mgr]

You guys have to understand I know nothing about soccer leagues. I only pay attention to the World Cup. From context of your posts, I'm assuming Bundesliga is the top league in Germany? I also take from it this owner paid to get his team moved up from the "minors"?

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

You guys have to understand I know nothing about soccer leagues. I only pay attention to the World Cup. From context of your posts, I'm assuming Bundesliga is the top league in Germany? I also take from it this owner paid to get his team moved up from the "minors"?

Yes to the top league and yes to the next part, my hometown team went up the leagues on Dave Whelans money, got to the EPL won the FA Cup got bored let them get relegated got £40 million for doing so, more than he paid in then sold them. Man City and Chelsea were just average clubs now their backed by oil rich owners.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

You guys have to understand I know nothing about soccer leagues. I only pay attention to the World Cup. From context of your posts, I'm assuming Bundesliga is the top league in Germany? I also take from it this owner paid to get his team moved up from the "minors"?

Yes on both points

[Cobra Mgr]

So how do teams usually "move up"?

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

So how do teams usually "move up"?

Promotion & relegation, in England the bottom 3 of the EPL get relegated to the Championship. The top two of the Championship go into the EPL, then teams 3, 4, 5 and 6 go into a play off 3v6 and 4v5 play 1 game home and away say 3 and 4 win they play a 1 off game at a neutral ground (Wembley). This happens in Division 1 and Division 2 as well so in the end you have 3 going down 3 going up in every division throughout the English pyramid.

Think of it like Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers and cant think of the 3rd worst team last year but they'd go into AAA and the 3 best teams in AAA would go to the majors. Big difference is EPL teams aren't affiliated with teams in the Championship and so on, they have a separate reserve league for under 21's. Hope this explains, it's also pretty much how it works in other leagues in Europe bar a few differences.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

Promotion & relegation, in England the bottom 3 of the EPL get relegated to the Championship. The top two of the Championship go into the EPL, then teams 3, 4, 5 and 6 go into a play off 3v6 and 4v5 play 1 game home and away say 3 and 4 win they play a 1 off game at a neutral ground (Wembley). This happens in Division 1 and Division 2 as well so in the end you have 3 going down 3 going up in every division throughout the English pyramid.

Think of it like Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers and cant think of the 3rd worst team last year but they'd go into AAA and the 3 best teams in AAA would go to the majors. Big difference is EPL teams aren't affiliated with teams in the Championship and so on, they have a separate reserve league for under 21's. Hope this explains, it's also pretty much how it works in other leagues in Europe bar a few differences.

So the league made an exception and allowed him to buy a spot in the majors instead the team earning it on the field? I don't blame fans for being angry.

[ukhotstove]

ps the Championship play off final at Wembley is said to be the richest one of sporting event in the world, the winner is pretty much guaranteed £100m for one season. In 2018/19 Huddersfield Town were the Detroit Tigers of the EPL they received £100m, they then received another £40m the season after (this season, they'll receive about £35m next season and £15m the season after in what they call parachute payments, so that 1 game final to get promoted to the EPL is worth at least £190m not taking into account sponsorship, tickets etc that's just TV money.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

So the league made an exception and allowed him to buy a spot in the majors instead the team earning it on the field? I don't blame fans for being angry.

No


Hoffenheim were in the 5th division at the time on his purchase of the club.

He purchased them and invested a lot of money into the club by offering high wages and transfer fees to players who would usually not play at that level.

They did and full professional players were playing at a level where usually amateurs and tiny handful of semi professional players play.

He purchased the team in 2000 and invested a considerable amount of money.
They won their league in the first season and got promoted to the fourth division.
The next season they won their league again and got promoted to the what at the time was known as the Regionalliga Süd
Today it is called the 3 Liga

In that league his investments were not enough as that league is mostly semi professionals.
The first season in that league (this would have been 2002-2003) they finished 13th.
He then put more money into the team and the next season they finished 5th but not good enough to be promoted.
They stayed in this league for a few more seasons and he put more money into the club.
In 2006–07 the club finished 2nd in the Regionalliga Süd which the top two finishing clubs are guaranteed to be promoted to the next league.
This is the 2 Bundesliga which is the second highest level of football in Germany.
Every club at this level are full on professional clubs and they struggled at first but he was committed so he poured more money into the team.
By the end of their first season in the 2 Bungesliga they finished second and this is yet another automatic promotion so they were promoted to the 1 Bundesliga which is the top level league.

Their first season was good and they finished 7th.
But it is very hard to just come in and with pure spending alone win. So over the course of the next 7 seasons they finished between 16th and 8th.
In 2012-13 they were almost relegated and held on.
By 2016-17 the club was well enough established that they were bringing in expensive players and producing their own and they finished 4th and then the next season in 2017-18 they finished 3rd.
That is their highest ever finish to date.

I know that is a lot to throw at you. But they did not just buy their way to the top league.
He invested hundreds of millions of Euros into the club (including spending 110 million Euros on a new 30,000 seat stadium for the club) but they did play by the rules and over the course of 8 years qualified enough times to get promoted to the highest level.

Red Bull Leipzig had an even more meteoric rise thanks to Red Bull throwing over half a billion Euros into the club.
They finished 2nd in the 2016-17 season.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

So the league made an exception and allowed him to buy a spot in the majors instead the team earning it on the field? I don't blame fans for being angry.

Also, every season some teams are relegated and some are promoted.
That is part of the league rules.
So there is always going to be club movement all over Europe in terms of moving up and falling back down.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

I know that is a lot to throw at you. But they did not just buy their way to the top league.
He invested hundreds of millions of Euros into the club (including spending 110 million Euros on a new 30,000 seat stadium for the club) but they did play by the rules and over the course of 8 years qualified enough times to get promoted to the highest level.

Don't apologize. I need the info so I can understand. That's why I created this post.

Why in the world would fans be upset about that? Isn't that what business is supposed to do? I buy a failing restaurant. I put money into it. It becomes a success. I invest more so I can franchise it and expand. I keep reinvesting and now I've own a whole chain of restaurants. Hello! That's basic economics. Welcome to free enterprise.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Don't apologize. I need the info so I can understand. That's why I created this post.

Why in the world would fans be upset about that? Isn't that what business is supposed to do? I buy a failing restaurant. I put money into it. It becomes a success. I invest more so I can franchise it and expand. I keep reinvesting and now I've own a whole chain of restaurants. Hello! That's basic economics. Welcome to free enterprise.

They went against tradition. And as you know, when you go against tradition it tends to upset a lot of people.
It is a very silly thing to get upset over.

He is also 79 years old and I do not know what his plans are for the club when he passes on. The team is by no means self sustaining even though it is is a better place than it was when it first arrived in terms of advertising revenue, merchandising and media rights.
But without his money they might not be a Bundesliga club.
So this is not exactly something that will continue forever.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

They went against tradition. And as you know, when you go against tradition it tends to upset a lot of people.

Bah! That's like saying poor black farmers should stay as sharecroppers cause that is how white southerners were used to seeing them. I "love" it when people have the attitude I should live my personal life in a way that pleases them.

[Skipaway]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Don't apologize. I need the info so I can understand. That's why I created this post.

Why in the world would fans be upset about that? Isn't that what business is supposed to do? I buy a failing restaurant. I put money into it. It becomes a success. I invest more so I can franchise it and expand. I keep reinvesting and now I've own a whole chain of restaurants. Hello! That's basic economics. Welcome to free enterprise.

Because football clubs are typically not considered businesses. They are social institutions. I am not sure what you mean by "free enterprise".

In no places are sports teams free enterprises. For example, the American pro leagues are closed structured where people can't just set up new "restaurants". They have to pay fee to the leagues and only get to do that when the leagues allow them.

In most countries, football teams are associated with communities are rarely about profits unless they unfortunately got an American owner.

None of these get anything to do with "basic economics".

[Westheim]

Just a reminder that the Hopp / Hoffenheim story is in no way something novel and hasn't never been done before in German football. Except back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s it was enough if you had a few sausage or clothing factories that were running well enough to funnel a million marks into a club. That was often enough to play Bundesliga then. The concept is the same though. Wattenscheid 09 is a team that comes to mind.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Skipaway

I am not sure what you mean by "free enterprise".

Conversely, I don't know what you mean by denying it is free enterprise. I don't feel like getting into a debate on the topic though since it has nothing to do with sports.

All I'm saying is in business, you buy a company, you invest in the company, you get return from your company, you grow the company, you better the company. That's true whether you are in a democracy, socialist, communist, or monarchy. No one should be upset about that.