THINK ACT

Photos: Dominik Asbach, Asbach / Laif
instead of buying expensive players, it concentrated on creating
and retaining its own stars, and succeeded. The only
exception was midfield strategist Nuri Sahin, who transferred
to Real Madrid, and national player Mats Hummels
who extended his contract with Dortmund in spite of a
handsome offer from FC Bayern. „We‘ve got something really
special in Dortmund, and this may be the only time
in my career that I experience it,“ he said. „We all want to
hang on to it for as long as it lasts.“
THINK
“We chose the sustainable route.” THINK ACT
talks to Borussia Dortmund chief executive Hans-
Joachim Watzke
Mr. Watzke,
is Borussia
Dortmund just
like any other
medium-sized
business?
In terms of
employees
and sales figures, definitely. They
need a well-defined management
structure with clear-cut hierarchies
and decision-making processes,
and so do we. That’s something
we’ve done here in Dortmund,
unlike many other Bundesliga
teams. But the Borussia Dortmund
brand has the global resonance of
a DAX company, which makes the
club much more valuable than the
figures suggest. Another factor,
of course, is that we have a huge
group of fans hanging on our every
decision.
What special skills does the CEO of
a football club need?
You need an entrepreneurial spirit,
you need talent, and most impor
tantly you need to understand
football. I understand the process-
es that go on with our team, and I
understand the inner structure of
the game, so I can assess the rec-
ommendations made by the coach
and the sports director.
When you took over in Dortmund,
the club was clinically dead.
When I took over this job, we were
living from day to day, every spare
euro went to the creditors, and
nobody wanted to lend us a single
euro – it just wasn’t a solid investment.
Both financially and from a
sporting point of view, we were
facing a long, slow death.
And then there was the credit
contract with Morgan Stanley.
That saved our lives; there are no
two ways about it. We had more
freedom to make our own business
decisions, albeit within a clearly
defined framework, and we were
able to start looking to the future
and developing a strategy to get the
club back on its feet.
How did you get along with them
after that?
At first there was skepticism on
both sides, but once we had a
proper financial framework and new
sponsorship contracts with good
companies, we regained the bank’s
trust. Some people in the club had
concerns that, to put it bluntly, we
were being taken over by some
ACT: TURN-AROUND BVB
American asset stripper, but they
were quickly disabused of that
view. My colleagues and I were very
impressed by the longterm finan-
cial strategy, and the understanding
of the sports business, that Morgan
Stanley and Roland Berger Strategy
Consultants showed in putting
together the recovery plan. They
did a great job. We were all clear
that we needed to work together
to get the business back on its feet,
and there was a lot of mutual trust,
respect, and professionalism.
One cornerstone of the recovery
plan was winning matches. Is that
something you can plan for?
No, you can’t plan for it, but you can
create the right framework. Michael
Zorc, the club’s manager, and I developed
a philosophy in Dortmund,
which was that the team needed to
play vertically, put the other side
permanently under pressure and
just go for it. Then we selected the
players – it’s easier to do with young
players – and we found the ideal
coach in Jürgen Klopp.
Probably every club in the Bundesliga
would like to have an
integrated sporting and business
philosophy. Why does this so rarely
succeed?
The key people have to understand
and trust each other, and
there mustn’t be too many of
them. That’s not easy in football,
because there are always so many
personal vanities involved. If you
don’t have a clear management
structure, you never know where
you are or what you’re doing.
From a business viewpoint,
what did you learn from the successful
restructuring of Borussia
Dortmund?
In this club, we only spend money
that we’ve earned. That’s our paradigm,
and that’s how it will stay.
We’ve chosen the sustainable route,
and even getting into the Champions
League won’t change that.
THINK ACT SEPTEMBER 2011 57