VfL Bochum celebrated its 175th anniversary – and is facing big challenges. That’s what we talked about with Patrick Fabian.

It was a special day. VfL Bochum celebrated its 175th anniversary on Saturday. In recent years, the Bundesliga football club has grown rapidly, the number of members, for example, has risen to over 25,000, and a limit of 18,000 season tickets has been reached due to the small Ruhr Stadium: Bochum is also facing great challenges in its third Bundesliga year in a row.

In the latest episode of our VfL Talk “anne Castroper”, Patrick Fabian, sports director of the traditional Bundesliga club, explains in conversation with host Annalena Fedtke and reporter Ralf Ritter how the club wants to establish itself permanently in the Bundesliga. The 35-year-old sporting director emphasises that a turnover of 100 million euros is a clear goal, and that this will also require transfer revenues in the future.

The former VfL professional, who survived four cruciate ligament ruptures, explains the transfer strategy. Fabian says that after twelve departures and ten arrivals, he feels that Bochum is in a state of upheaval after every season. With Simon Zoller and Gerrit Holtmann, Bochum has lost two crowd favourites. A player like the new midfielder Matus Bero could become an identification figure because of his mentality, says Fabian. And that also applies to the coach, Thomas Letsch. His contract expires in the summer. The DFB would meet granite with an enquiry, says Fabian with a smile in response to the corresponding question.

The sporting director explains the timetable with Letsch and, in our eight quick questions in post-match time, also why the fans of VfL Bochum make more of an atmosphere than the Schalke fans. Enjoy the video!