After the heated general meeting of Borussia Dortmund, the general meeting of shareholders followed around 24 hours later. Among those who spoke were Hans-Joachim Watzke, who will step down as BVB managing director at the end of 2025, and sports boss Lars Ricken.
In preparation for his gradual exit from the BVB management team, Watzke had already placed overall sporting responsibility in the hands of Ricken in the summer of 2024. A decision that also received criticism, as quite a few people would have wanted a strong man in Dortmund who didn’t give off the smell of a stable.
Watzke, however, sees the club’s strong ties to forces from its own ranks as a strength of the Black and Yellows.
“As Borussia, I’m proud that we have a coach and a sports director from one academy. You’re swimming in your own juice? That’s bullshit,” Watzke took a clear stance against the criticism on Monday. “Together they have won more titles than the rest of North Rhine-Westphalia will win in their entire lives. Nothing is missing, just patience.”
After the manageably successful season so far and in view of major injury problems, patience is something that is in great demand at BVB. In the end, only sporting success can bring the club management and coach Nuri Sahin into calmer waters.
Lars Ricken is sure: BVB will beat FC Bayern
Ricken is at least remarkably positive that a real coup will soon be achieved. With a view to the top Bundesliga game against FC Bayern on Saturday (6:30 p.m.), the BVB boss made a strikingly loud statement to the shareholders’ meeting.
“We in the sports management are sure: This will be a great game. We will win it! And we want to win it. We will do it together,” says Ricken.
He also responded to voices criticizing BVB’s supposedly too thin staffing levels. “When I hear that our squad is too small… I looked again: Nuri substituted four or five national players in the first few games. We are happy with our squad,” emphasized Ricken.
In addition, the experts gave BVB a good grade for their transfer efforts in the run-up to the season.
Source: www.sport.de
