CEO Carsten Schmidt leaves Hertha BSC after a short time for personal reasons. He vehemently contradicts speculations that he felt unsupported. The club still has to realign itself.
On the day after CEO Carsten Schmidt’s surprising departure was announced, Hertha BSC left it open as to whether the position created in December 2020 will be filled again. President Werner Gegenbauer announced on Wednesday that this should only be discussed in the association’s committees. Hertha BSC announced on Tuesday that Schmidt’s previous tasks would be taken over by the managing directors responsible for sports (Fredi Bobic) and finance (Ingo Schiller). As chairman of the management board, Schmidt was primarily responsible for topics such as marketing, sales, strategy, corporate communication and internationalization. “There are clear ideas about what we will be missing and what we have to fill,” emphasized Gegenbauer. But: “We don’t need any quick fixes.”
Schmidt’s departure was due to personal reasons. A case of illness in the family requires his full attention, which is not compatible with a full-time job such as chairing the management at Hertha. He countered the speculation that he did not see himself adequately supported by Hertha with a downright snubbed undertone. “There is no crack, there was no crack, there will be no crack between those involved,” said Schmidt. He “never felt any resistance to initiatives that I had initiated. In no time at all. I always felt supported from all sides.” He is also “not worried” that his contract termination “will result in a vacuum in which Hertha BSC is only partially unable to act.” That Hertha, which had been in a crisis for some time, had recently been referred to as a “chaos club” annoyed him, explained Schmidt. “I can only laugh myself to death,” said the counter-farmer, who was re-elected at the end of 2020 with only 54 percent of the vote.
The now necessary realignment of the club will, at least for the time being and perhaps also in the long run, lead back to structures that were considered to have been overcome. It will result in a management model as it was known until January 2021, when Schiller, who has been in office since 2001, shared management with Michael Preetz. That should not weaken the position of Gegenbauer, who has been in office since 2008. To the question of the trade magazine Kickerwhether a realignment of the club with Gegenbauer and Schiller, who has been in office since 2001, was “even possible”, Bobic replied at the end of September: “Werner Gegenbauer is one of the reasons why I am here. That answers the question.”