“If you think back to the creditors’ meeting 20 years ago, then it’s a success that we’re even here today at all,” says the Borussia Dortmund chief executive, Hans-Joachim Watzke.
In March 2005, 444 investors in the Molsiris real-estate fund, which owned 94% of BVB’s Westfalenstadion and had been leasing it back to the club for €17m a year, gathered in a non-descript conference hall at Düsseldorf Airport to vote on a bailout plan to save the financially stricken club from insolvency.
The proposed recovery plan, drawn up in part by Watzke, then the club treasurer, had the Molsiris creditors agreeing to defer stadium rent payments and to allow BVB to access a €43m cash deposit, money that would otherwise have been paid out to them. “If the creditors reject the plan, that’s it,” the administrator said at the time. “Then it’s over.”
Finally, at 3.29pm on the day which came to be known as Molsiris-Montag, the screen on the voting machine turned green: 94.4% of the creditors had agreed, and Dortmund were saved.
Watzke, who previously ran a medium-sized company producing protective gear for firefighters in his home town of Marsberg, just east of Dortmund, became chief executive and would go on to pull the strings at BVB for 20 more years before announcing that he would be stepping down in the autumn this year.
The 65-year-old has overseen the highs of back-to-back Bundesliga titles under Jürgen Klopp, three German Cup wins and two Champions League final appearances as Borussia Dortmund established themselves as the closest domestic rivals to Bayern Munich. But his tenure has also featured frustrating near misses on the pitch plus an almost deadly terrorist attack and the existential threat of the pandemic off it.
When we meet in his office overlooking a sun-drenched Westfalenstadion the top two in the Bundesliga are Bayern Munich and the defending champions, Bayer Leverkusen, while Dortmund are languishing in mid-table.
“I’m annoyed we’ve lost the position of the second power in German football to Bayer Leverkusen, which we’ve always been able to claim for ourselves for 15 years,” Watzke says, but he believes he is leaving with the club stronger than ever.
“Financially, I would say we have done almost everything right over the last 20 years,” he says. “With the exception of the three coronavirus years, we’ve been consistently in the black.”
Last season, BVB announced a record €639m turnover, including transfer revenues, boosted by the team’s spectacular run to the Champions League final and the sale of Jude Bellingham to Real Madrid, who beat them in that Wembley showpiece.
But for many, the sight of Bellingham lifting the European Cup in the white of Real rather than the yellow of Borussia, 12 months after BVB had spectacularly thrown away the Bundesliga title on the final day of the season, was emblematic of where Watzke really leaves Dortmund: financially stable with a well-earned reputation for developing world-class talent, but perennial nearly men both at home and abroad.
“Everyone knows the players we develop can compete at the highest level,” he says, reeling off Robert Lewandowski, Ilkay Gündogan, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ousmane Dembélé, Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho and Bellingham. “But it’s not our philosophy. We don’t say: we want to develop a player and then sell him. We want to be successful. I would prefer it if we had the financial strength of Bayern Munich and could say no.”
There was one summer, just before Covid-19 arrived, where Dortmund seemed to have reached a point where they could finally do that, forcing Manchester United to wait an extra 12 months before coughing up €85m for Sancho – who never managed to replicate his form at Old Trafford and returned to BVB on loan last season.
“Jadon is a lovely lad and he felt at home here,” says Watzke. “His relationship with [the former BVB head coach] Edin Terzic was particularly important. They got on brilliantly. I think he came back here specifically because of Edin.”
The appointment of Terzic, a boyhood Dortmund fan and former assistant to Slaven Bilic at Besiktas and West Ham, is one of several examples of recruitment that have left Watzke accused of favouring “internal” appointments who bring with them a certain Stallgeruch – or stable odour.
Former players handed key roles include Terzic’s short-lived successor Nuri Sahin, the former and current directors of sport Michael Zorc and Sebastian Kehl, Watzke’s designated successor as chief executive Lars Ricken, plus external adviser Matthias Sammer. That hierarchy has overseen the construction of a squad that may have reached the Champions League final, but also finished fifth in the Bundesliga last term and are on course to finish even lower this season, despite another Champions League quarter-final looming against Barcelona.
But to those who suggest that BVB could benefit from more external input rather than hankering after a return to the glory years under Klopp, Watzke has a robust response: “We’d be pretty stupid if we didn’t try to tie down the quality we already have at the club long-term. Anyway, only two of our coaches in my 20 years had this so-called Stallgeruch. And if Edin Terzic has to apologise for almost winning the Bundesliga and reaching the Champions League final, then bitte schön – be my guest.”
The shadow of Klopp does loom large over the Westfalenstadion, though, never more so than when he returned to coach in a testimonial last year. Four months later, he became Global Head of Soccer at Red Bull, a company synonymous with the perceived overcommercialisation of the game in the eyes of many German fans, and Dortmund’s hardcore support in particular who, this month, boycotted the away fixture against RB Leipzig for the ninth season in a row.
“I understand the disappointment and the criticism [of Klopp], but I don’t share it,” says Watzke. “Just because someone was at Borussia Dortmund 10 years ago doesn’t give us the right to judge them. Jürgen is my friend and he is a free man. He is an outstanding football expert, has a great aura and the ability to inspire people.”
Watzke has softened in his stance on Red Bull slightly since stating that RB Leipzig stands “contrary to everything we associate with football” after their promotion to the Bundesliga in 2016. Leipzig exploited a loophole in German football’s 50+1 rule, but Watzke remains a vocal advocate of the regulation, which stipulates that parent clubs retain 50% of voting shares in a commercial company that runs a club’s professional football operation, plus one share.
“German football has done very well with 50+1,” he says. “Why do you think we attract the biggest crowds in Europe? In Germany, everyone can go to the stadium without having to worry about their finances the next day.
“I think the UK government would like to have a bit of 50+1 in English football. But the Anglo-Saxon culture doesn’t have a club culture like we have here. You have to decide: do you want turbo-capitalism or do you want a social market economy? In Germany, we want the latter, even if it costs us a title from time to time.”
Watzke may be stepping down from his role at Dortmund, but his decision to stand for re-election to Uefa’s executive committee this year suggests that he is far from finished with football. He has always been a political person. His membership of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and his friendship with the country’s incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, are no secret, and he considers himself a staunch democrat.
However, those credentials were questioned in some quarters recently when Dortmund signed a controversial sponsorship deal with the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, without consulting the club’s membership. Watzke said it gave him “sleepless nights”, but ultimately stuck to his course.
“The members sometimes don’t accept that we also have to make decisions for the benefit of our shareholders,” he says, describing 50+1 as a “compromise” and a “constant process of balance”. He insists “50+1 does not mean grassroots democracy”, but rather that “the members elect their representatives and they then decide”.
From battling to convince the Molsiris creditors to back his bailout plan back in 2005 to lively exchanges over Rheinmetall in 2024, Watzke has never shied away from a debate. However, he laments a change in the public discourse. “People’s behaviour has become very aggressive,” he says. “Anyone can post on social media, hide behind a nickname and vent their frustration, that’s not good.”
As a result, he believes he has had to become “tougher” and “less illusionary” but says: “I still haven’t managed to detach my personal mood from Borussia’s last result. That’s annoying. But I am infinitely grateful for these 20 years. My club has given me much more than I have been able to give back.”
