The club management of third division team Rot-Weiss Essen has recently been the subject of harsh criticism. Now Pfeifer, Rang and Oelert take a stand in an interview. Here is the second part of the conversation.
On Sunday, the annual general meeting of the third division club Rot-Weiss Essen is scheduled to take place from 11 a.m. In advance of this, this editorial team met with the two RWE board members Marc-Nicolai Pfeifer and Alexander Rang and supervisory board chairman Lothar Oelert for an extensive interview.
In the first part, we talked about the fan protests, the chaotic last AGM in 2023 and the inglorious departure of Sascha Peljhan.
In the second part, the RWE leadership talks about the annual reports, developments among the sponsors and the club’s future goals.
Marc-Nicolai Pfeifer, you have been in office for more than three months now. What is the situation in Essen?
Pfeifer: We don’t want to reinvent RWE. We have huge potential and a good starting position. We want to and will now develop things further. There are things we want to improve.
For example?
Pfeifer: The aim is to be able to realistically talk about promotion on the basis of good economic performance and not just dream about it. It is also important to improve communication and to become more self-critical. We haven’t been able to do that perfectly yet. We want to develop our revenue with the big lever, especially sponsorship. That’s not just a slogan, we have a clear plan here. Alexander Rang will take this up at the general meeting on Sunday. We also see opportunities in match operations.
What about the stadium expansion?
Pfeifer: We also want to improve the financial result from match operations and, of course, expand the stadium. We want to do everything we can to contribute to this through good development, continuity and calm in the club. This way, we can further build the trust of politicians so that they tackle this project with us. Of course, the conditions must also be right here. We want to and must continue to tackle the issue of infrastructure, for example at the conveyor belt. The starting point is good overall, but certain things need to be further optimized.
What, for example?
Pfeifer: The relationship between the total budget and what can be invested in the player budget. We currently have a ratio that is below average in the league comparison. So we are not efficient enough. We have too much effort in other areas that do not serve the sport.
What still needs to be done?
Pfeifer: We need better cost management. We also had to make some changes in the commercial area to ensure transparency and better control. In addition, we have spoken to every employee since July to see if we are doing the right things and doing things right. We looked at whether we are overstaffed in some parts of the administration. We are not at the moment. We have a hardworking team that is passionate about what it does and is now responsible for more sales with fewer people. There were also contracts that were running without any consideration. Alex has been deeply involved in this and has created results.
What exactly is being done?
Pfeifer: We have clear goals, what we want to achieve with the measures and how we want to improve the finances. We are currently reworking every expense item. Compared to the original planning for the current season, we have already achieved some concrete improvements. We have managed to achieve a positive result in the ambitious 3rd division. Not many clubs manage that. We have fulfilled all the conditions imposed on us by the DFB, and we have also been able to slightly increase the budget for the first team. I can only thank everyone who works for RWE. We are on the right track.
What kind of balance sheet will be presented to the members on Sunday?
Pfeifer: If you look at the whole 2023/24 season, we will end up around the black zero, so in summary, a very good result. On Sunday, we will mainly be talking about the short fiscal year 2024, i.e. from January 1, 2024 to June 30, 2024. This half of the season is slightly negative because a few items have already been posted in the first half of the season and have improved our result there. In addition, there were more home games in the first half of the season.
Rang: It should also not be forgotten that we also had extraordinary expenses during this period, for example, due to contract terminations that would otherwise have continued to burden us in the future. We are working hard to clarify many of the issues in order to minimize the burden in the future as well.
What is the current situation regarding marketing?
Rang: We have managed – despite the loss of the league marketing (central partner of the DFB) and other sponsors – to be in a better position than after last season. We started at minus 600,000 euros and are now already above the previous year. The sales results are good, we have spoken to over 100 well-known companies and are in concrete talks with 50 of them. It is a great success for us to exceed the level of the previous year with a significantly smaller team. We are constantly creating new products, which is also important because our rights are very well marketed. We have also managed to welcome the CEOs of 15 very well-known corporations to the stadium. This is an important first step because we are sure that our stadium experience is unique and that it increases our chances of a partnership. In our sales talks, we are confronted with the topic of the 2023 AGM. Potential partners want to know the direction RWE is heading in. For almost everyone, but more noticeably for well-known companies, it is often about our image, continuity, trust and reliability. We are on the right track here to reach a competitive level in the 3rd division. We are currently on the road with half the people in sales compared to September 2023, with a slightly improved sales level. This helps on the cost side. Marc and I consider cost discipline to be extremely important. You can collect whatever you want at the front. But if you don’t have the costs under control, it won’t work and we won’t achieve our goals.
Pfeifer: At the start, I was asked when Alexander Rang would finally join the Dax companies. Of course, this is and remains an important topic. But in addition to quality, quantity is also important, not least to avoid becoming dependent. We want to bind the portfolio, we want to give everyone the opportunity to support RWE. We will also work hard to ensure that there are concepts for smaller companies so that everyone can find something here. Of course, we would also like to see more funds and an image transfer from larger companies, which always works in both directions. But under no circumstances should we neglect the breadth.
Rang: It is important for us to say that we do not only finance ourselves through sponsoring. We also have the hospitality area, where we have never had such a good occupancy rate. All boxes are sold. We have the topics of ticketing and merchandising, where we are developing positively and have made important decisions for the future. One example is the termination of our cooperation with the BVB fan shop. We are grateful for the support. Now we have re-evaluated the situation and found that we can generate better returns in other ways. We are constantly growing in the membership area and there will be further measures to support this positive development. But you also have to have good and reputable processes in place to collect the membership fees. We have left a lot of this unfinished in the past, but we are now working on it.
How does the supervisory board currently rate the work of the management board?
Oelert: We are happy to have found Alexander Rang, a man with a high level of expertise in the region who is involved in the club far beyond the topic of sales. We are proud that we were able to win Marc-Nicolai Pfeifer over, considering that other good clubs were also interested in him. We have found an experienced expert. I am therefore firmly convinced that with this team we are in a good position to move forward. This is how RWE can develop.
The contracts of the sporting management team around Christian Flüthmann (sports director) and Marcus Steegmann (director of professional football) would have expired next summer. One area of work has been closed here.
Pfeifer: We have just managed to extend the contracts of our sports director Christian Flüthmann and our director of professional football Marcus Steegmann on a long-term basis. This decision reflects our commitment to continuity, sustainability and long-term success. The positive sporting development that we have experienced in the last two seasons is largely due to the commitment and expertise of Christian and Marcus.
Rank: Their achievements have strengthened our teams while also promoting the values of our club. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Christian and Marcus for their hard work and commitment, and we look forward to the challenges ahead.