A much-discussed repeat election was being prepared in Berlin when some people went to the polls in Hamburg. No incidents worth mentioning were reported from the Hanseatic city, the election went smoothly, especially since the urns were in fact modern smartphones. The result of the election: At the end of January, 467 club members voted in favor of Marcell Jansen remaining president of Hamburger SV, only 169 were against. The ex-professional had thus survived a motion against him to be voted out, which had been a huge topic of debate in Hamburg for weeks.
From the point of view of democratic theory, the process had the significant weakness that only a very small part of the approximately 90,000 HSV members took part in the annual meeting, but it was even more confusing: what exactly was decided there?
This question received new topicality on Monday when a message broke that Hamburg evening paper prompted about the “end of the unrest?” to speculate at the traditional club: Marcell Jansen, the president of HSV, is no longer the chairman of the supervisory board of HSV – which not only tells a lot about Jansen’s track record in the control committee, but also about the power struggles that have been fought behind the scenes, which HSV has been up to for years put in place.
Jansen versus Kühne: That was the current line of conflict at HSV
All debates focus on the person of Jansen. As president of HSV eV, the 37-year-old is primarily responsible for popular sport, but he can also have a say in the composition of the supervisory board, which in turn sets the course for the professional department, which is spun off into an AG. There is only a vague dividing line between the areas of responsibility, which could also be seen at the general meeting at the end of January. To put it bluntly: Jansen retained the presidency because the track and field athletes and wheelchair basketball players were happy with him. Those who no longer wanted to see Jansen as head of the supervisory board were outvoted.
This was now made up for on Monday at the general meeting of the AG. Jansen hands over the presidency of the council to Michael Papenfuss, the treasurer of the eV, but in accordance with the statutes he remains on the supervisory body as a simple member. This time, however, it is not the electorate that is behind the dismissal, but the power of capital – above all HSV shareholder Klaus-Michael Kühne, who used to be a supporter of Jansen, but is now one of his harshest critics.
And the billionaire had a lot to complain about in the past few months: Jansen’s paling with Thomas Wüstefeld, who has since resigned, for example, which paralyzed the Hamburg office for a year; or his closeness to the discredited private equity man Detlef Dinsel, who would have liked to buy shares in the club. In addition, there were months of quarrels in the supervisory board led by Jansen and a broken relationship with HSV sports director Jonas Boldt and trainer Tim Walter.
But these are just the points on Kühne’s list of shortcomings that have been most discussed in public so far, because there is something else behind his opposition to Jansen: a possible change in the legal form of HSV, from an AG to a KGaA. Kühne is in favour, because it would allow him to buy additional shares and thus expand his influence; Jansen is against it because the presidency would lose significant weight. With Jansen’s dethronement from the chairmanship of the supervisory board, Kühne was able to achieve a first partial success.
The fact that the 85-year-old is serious about his project is not only evident from the sum of 120 million euros that he would like to invest in the club. It can also be seen in his vocabulary: “The battle is not over yet,” Kühne recently said in the manager magazine announced and certainly not forget one thing: there is only a new legal form if it wins a contest vote among the HSV members.