Football stocks: More fan articles than investments

Clubs like Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 try to get additional money on the financial market with stocks or bonds. Experts take a critical view of this. But the economic pressure on the clubs is growing.

The Borussia Dortmund share was and is not successful. The issue price in 2000 was 11 euros. It has never reached this value again. Eleven years ago it was just over one euro, now it’s around 6.50 euros. Football clubs shouldn’t go to the capital market, says Markus Knoss from Bank M.

“It cannot be calculated,” says Knoss. “If the sporting success is there, it will be good, but if it is no longer there, then it goes into the basement, and the capital market doesn’t like that at all. These are pure enthusiast projects.” Stefan Riße from the Acatis fund company puts it less diplomatically: “You can basically say that football stocks are more fan articles than investments.”

Clammy coffers

Some clubs – such as the relegated from the Bundesliga, Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen – have issued bonds. Former football professional and today’s capital market expert at Robomarkets Jürgen Molnar thinks that the clubs are clinging to a straw. It is about “just getting a little bit of money into the bank of the clammy club”.

Money that the clubs get mainly from the fans. They lend money to their club out of love for the club. As a shareholder, you become a co-owner, you may, even have to be informed about the business conduct of the club. Axel Hellmann, CEO of Eintracht Frankfurt AG, calls this a new type of communication that one shuns.

“Of course, because they are public, capital market measures require a different form of reporting,” says Hellmann. “You have a significantly higher effort in the entire communication. I generally prefer entrepreneurial models or participation models. However, we have to keep that in mind.”

Investors help more

The path to the capital market is therefore not ruled out as the very last resort. At least one club would certainly be successful on the stock exchange: Bayern Munich. That could be thinks Jürgen Molnar from Robomarkets. But Bayern didn’t need that. “Bayern Munich has big investors with Adidas, Allianz, Audi. They have enough money in their fixed-term deposit accounts,” said Molnar. Bayern are well advised – and not to expose themselves to the capital market.

Bayern Munich may remain an exception – but something is happening in the scene. A whole season behind it, with no fans in the stadium, left huge holes in the budget for some clubs. The attraction of collecting money on the capital market, be it through an IPO or bonds, could soon weaken other professional clubs.