When uli hoeneb gets chatting as a celebrity guest at an event, the FC bayern munchen club patron regularly delivers headlines.
Shortly before the top match in the fubball bundesliga on saturday evening at top-ranked borussia dortmund, the time had come again: hoeneb announced at the 1. At the first saxon business dialogue in dresden, he announced his retirement from the presidency of the german record champion. Not immediately, of course, but probably before the next round of birthdays.
"I am now 66 years old. Let me do this job for another two or three years," said hoeneb in rudolf harbig stadium, where he talked to host birgit nossing about soccer, business and his life. Hoeneb sketched a clear picture of a successor. "He should be someone who has a human side ? And one who comes from fubball", the "sachsische zeitung" quoted him as saying. But who fulfills this profile?? The female also hoeneb not (yet). We have to look for the "eierlegende wollmilchsau". It will be hard. If I knew that he or she could do it, I would quit next year."
In november 2019 his term as president ends. Two years ago, hoeneb returned to the helm of germany’s most important soccer club after serving a prison sentence for tax evasion. During his absence from march 2014 to november 2016, long-time managing director and chief financial officer karl-hopfner (66) had him in the top office of FC bayern munchen e.V. Represented.
Economically hoeneb wants to hand over the german record champion in any case in a top condition. FC bayern has more money in its coffers than ever before, he reported proudly in dresden. "I want to hand over a full treasury to my successor. Then they can do what they want with the money."The inflation of the draw fees and player salaries in the age of solvent investors in the european competition condemns hoeneb. And so far he refuses to spend more than 100 million euros on a star.
Hoeneb before leaving bayern? Done. It is precisely the present, in which the sporting supremacy of munich in the bundesliga is crumbling after six championship years, that will tend to spur hoeneb on.
It is also not the first time that the man for whom FC bayern is his life’s work and who likes to call the club his "second family" is thinking about a future without him and also the chairman of the board karl-heinz rummenigge (63) – even publicly.
At the beginning of the season, hoeneb, who started out as a player in munich, was manager for 30 years and has been president and chairman of the supervisory board since 2009 with one interruption, spoke about the difficult succession plan at the top of the record championship.
At the time, hoeneb was chatting during jorg wontorra’s fubball talk on TV station sky. There, he tied the chairman of the board (rummenigge) and the president (hoeneb) into one package. "It’s not possible for both of us to stop at the same time. We can’t do that to the club," said hoeneb. The shake-up at the top of the club was going to be "extreme and very rough" anyway. "This will be a difficult time," predicted the president for the future without the two long-serving bosses.
Hoeneb said in august that the "most important task" was to prepare the club "for the future in terms of management over the next two or three years". Rummenigge’s contract as CEO also expires at the end of next year. The fact that the then 64-year-old extends another three years until 2022, has not yet been announced as fixed. "I’ll say at some point: that’s it! I hope that i can determine the timing myself," hoeneb said at the start of the season. A prediction does not seem bold: the major upheaval in bavaria’s top management will probably not occur until the next decade, i.E. After 2020.