Rainer Holzschuh once said that he was particularly influenced by religious instruction when he was at school. Not in Bible studies, but in football studies, because when the teacher gave a lecture on the Christian worldview in the first lesson on Mondays, Holzschuh secretly used the table under the table that appeared in the morning kicker to read. There is no doubt that he was also practicing a form of religious cultivation. Holzschuh, later editor-in-chief for 21 years and then publisher for eleven years of what is rightly called the central organ kicker, has always seen football as more than a sport, a pastime and a popular amusement. For him, the world of football formed its own cosmos, which takes its defining place in the middle of society. The existence of the Academy for Football Culture, which has been based in Nuremberg since 2004, is not least due to this iron conviction. Holzschuh was passionate about founding it.
Now the journalist and lobbyist, who from 1983 to 1988 also served as DFB press chief alongside national coach Jupp Derwall and team boss Franz Beckenbauer, died at the age of 77, and it is probably no exaggeration to say that this was surprising The news does not only make the national football community pause in shock. As the long-standing president of the Association of United European Sports Media (ESM), Holzschuh’s journalistic work went beyond German borders. For decades he has “been the face of kicker helped shape the sports media landscape, “said Bärbel Schnell, the managing director of Olympia-Verlag, in which the magazine appears:” His work will remain visible for a long time. “On his 50th birthday, the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl congratulated him live during the World Cup in the USA .
Rainer Holzschuh at the awarding of the Walter Bensemann Prize by the German Academy for Football Culture.
(Photo: Daniel Marr / Zink / imago)
As colleagues say, Holzschuh was a crazy guy, namely a football madman. His knowledge of lineups and game events was lexical, so younger employees didn’t always have an easy time with the boss. Question to the intern at the interview: “Name the three Bundesliga players whose last name is Reinhardt.” Answer: Alois, Knut, Dominik (not all three are related to each other). The Holzschuh, who was born in Bad Kissingen in Bavaria, is a lawyer and major in the reserve (not a commissioner), could have a decisive tone when he led the editorial team, but he was also jovial and sociable, basically, it is said, a person of harmony. He strongly encouraged debates in the conferences, and editors could count on his loyalty when there was anger and pressure from the legal department. Like in 2004 with the revelations of the kicker – and the SZ – about the machinations of Borussia Dortmund’s President Gerd Niebaum.
Holzschuh sometimes represented clear views on custom and morality, the leitmotif was then always the common good of football, which he sometimes represented like a living being. After the self-exposure of the coking trainer Christoph Daum 21 years ago, his friend Holzschuh drew the damage balance in his own affected way: “The loser is football, which has found itself in a witch’s court of abuse and disgrace.” As a practically incarnate “Mister kicker” he felt encouraged to make presidential appeals (“the 20 million German football fans have a right to the fact that not self-interest, but overall good is paramount”), and sometimes the reader wondered why the editors don’t occasionally do this Supported the editor-in-chief in editing his texts. Now and then one might think of it as sabotage, but experts say that this had to do with the respect that Rainer Holzschuh enjoyed.