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BVB: Hans-Joachim Watzke leaves management

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Football official
From autumn 2025: Watzke will leave BVB management

So now: From next year onwards, BVB will have to sort out its business without Hans-Joachim Watzke

© Bernd Thissen / DPA

Hans-Joachim Watzke’s era at Borussia Dortmund will end in 2025 after 20 years. He recently postponed his exit, but now BVB is facing a change.

Hans Joachim Watzke will leave the management of Borussia Dortmund in autumn 2025. The listed Bundesliga soccer team announced this on Monday. The 64-year-old’s contract will then expire, marking the end of an era at the Revierclub after 20 years. At BVB’s training camp in Marbella, Watzke confirmed that he would not be extending his contract. “It was always important to me that it would be a self-determined departure. It was a long time,” said Watzke, according to “Ruhr Nachrichten”.

He is very grateful to the club. “I consider it a great privilege. I will do my job with full enthusiasm and energy until the last day,” said Watzke. He now wants to concentrate on strategy and the transition in the last year of his term in office. “The Presidential Committee asked me to hold discussions, develop ideas and present a concept regarding overall responsibility. I agreed to that.” It is unclear whether he will take on another position at BVB and who will be his successor.

Watzke did not want to leave BVB during the corona pandemic

Watzke’s contract as CEO of BVB was extended until 2025 in May 2021. At that time, Watzke had postponed his planned exit again due to the corona pandemic and its effects. “I know my responsibility towards this club very well. It is completely impossible for me to leave the ship in the greatest crisis,” he said at the time.

Watzke has had a huge impact on the club’s development in recent years and experienced with BVB, among other things, the successful era under coach Jürgen Klopp with two championship titles in 2011 and 2012, the cup victory in 2012 and the Champions League final in 2013. Watzke was at BVB in 2005 was appointed managing director.

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In the German Football League, Watzke heads the supervisory board and is spokesman for the executive committee. Since the departure of the former DFL managing director Christian Seifert, the BVB boss has been the defining face of the league. For German football, he has also sat on the executive committee of the European Football Union as Vice President of the German Football Association since April 2023. His mandate in UEFA also ends in 2025.