TSV 1860 Munich: The new Lions squad has its price

There's currently a buzz around TSV 1860 Munich , thanks to the high-profile summer signings. More than 1,000 fans attended the start of training, and on Saturday, 1,700 spectators attended the rather insignificant friendly match against district league side TSV 1862 Grafenau (10-0). Returning player Kevin Volland scored the first goal and outshone everyone else, but the newcomers, who were recently unveiled in Giesing, also boast impressive resumes by third-division standards. But their backgrounds are equally impressive.

The supervisory board of TSV 1860 once again increased the budget for "personnel expenses for match operations" at short notice, as first reported by the Abendzeitung newspaper – presumably in the hope of a similarly improved promotion prospect. It rose from an original €4.5 million to €6.3 million. At first glance, this appears to be a common practice for the Lions – after all, the investor representatives hold a majority on the board, and further new debt for Hasan Ismaik doesn't bother them much. It was also common practice in the past for the eV supervisory boards to abstain, expressing their reluctance to accept further loans from the professional football limited partnership.

But this time, according to information from the SZ, everything was different: eV representatives Thomas Probst and Sebastian Seeböck even voted against it – because, in their own opinion, they had no choice. Karl-Christian Bay did not participate and transferred his voting rights to Seeböck.

According to information from the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a shortfall of €250,000 for the coming season has not been offset in the so-called "Financial and Investment Planning III," and a shortfall of approximately €5 million for the season after next, which is also included, has not been offset at all. Accordingly, there is no commitment or even a signature from Ismaik for any corresponding loans.

Despite being asked to do so, the investor representatives around Supervisory Board Chairman Saki Stimoniaris are said to have remained silent on financing by HAM (Ismaik's company, ed.). "I can neither confirm nor deny the facts described due to existing confidentiality obligations," Seeböck explained in response to an inquiry from SZ, "but in principle, I can say that a supervisory board would certainly not be able to approve a financial plan, if only for liability reasons, if it were not backed by counter-financing. There would then be no other option than no."

The next continuation forecast for the heavily indebted professional football limited partnership (KGaA) by an auditor is scheduled for the fall. By then, it must be clearly clarified how any shortfall would be absorbed if special effects such as player transfers are insufficient. And the eV representatives on the supervisory board, as well as the administrative boards of the parent club, will now share the concern that Ismaik's necessary loans will once again be tied to claims. Most recently, the current executive committee led by Robert Reisinger, much to the displeasure of the administrative board, accepted a clause in a loan agreement: Should the executive committee appoint or dismiss a managing director against the wishes of the investors through a 50+1 arrangement, the loan could become immediately due. This clause led to the final rift between Reisinger's executive committee and the administrative boards, who subsequently did not nominate the committee for possible re-election.

The loan from this controversial contract has already been completely used up by the new budget planning. The new executive committee led by Gernot Mang will then have to deal with possible demands for additional loans, assuming it is elected at the general meeting on July 6. It can be assumed that the board of directors asked the candidates for the executive committee how they would handle such a situation when selecting them.

Fundamentally, the eV naturally has a means of preventing a budget increase by the investor-dominated supervisory board – this is ultimately necessary to maintain the 50+1 rule, which guarantees the parent clubs sovereignty in German football clubs: The executive committee can issue an instruction obliging the managing director to adhere to a set budget. However, no timely instruction was issued – although the administrative boards and a significant portion of the active club members would have preferred such an instruction. In the short term, it would have been pointless anyway, as managing director Christian Werner's squad planning had long been based on the prospect that the supervisory board would approve the budget increase. And an ill-conceived squad can be in no one's interest – not even the parent club's. So, there is now euphoria among the Lions fans, albeit euphoria at a high price.