Duisburg’s new sports director Ulf Schott presented his ambitious goals to the members of MSV Duisburg. If promotion does not succeed, insignificance threatens.
With just under 20 minutes of speaking time, Ulf Schott gave one of the longest and, not only from the fans’ point of view, most exciting speeches on Wednesday evening at the almost five-hour members’ meeting of MSV Duisburg.
After the obligatory round of introductions, the newly elected sports director of the Zebras explained in detail the second division mission until 2025 issued by president Ingo Wald in August 2022. Ralf Heskamp is also part of the 52-year-old’s strategy. But Duisburg’s sports managing director preferred to leave most of the content to the long-serving FIFA manager and DFB director of elite and talent development, who was hired as a consultant for sporting expertise in spring 2022.
Schott, who himself used to play for Darmstadt 98 in the second division, quickly had the members on his side and earned much applause for his words. But the road is long, the pressure to succeed great. If promotion is not achieved in the next two years, the goal of the second league would be miles away. A hard cut would have to be made. The alarm bells could be ringing.
“Surviving in the third division cannot be our goal. We have a structural deficit. In the Second League we would be in the black and achieve consolidation. We are more consolidated, but still on shaky ground,” Wald said earlier about the financial situation. That is precisely what everything stands or falls on. The generation of further major sponsors, the proximity to the Netherlands and Belgium or the good contact to the USA through shareholder Capelli would offer good opportunities.
The members demanded clearly formulated goals instead of empty promises. Schott presented five pillars to the supporters: responsibility in sport, playing ideals/philosophy, squad development and scouting, individual development and integration of the NLZ.
He said it was important to measure oneself first against small successes. “This is not a promise, but our vision. If you don’t set the goal, you can’t achieve it. We have to subordinate everything to that. The final clarity has been missing, we have to align ourselves with that, become louder and be courageous,” said Schott, who wants to help MSV with his expertise. “A concept is only as good as the people acting. It is a process in which we also want to create values. That won’t be easy,” Schott knows.
Heskamp, on the other hand, provided information about the guard rails for the sporting management and expressed pride that the concept of the training and development club was bearing fruit through the “excellent work in the NLZ” and the introduction of young talents to the professional team.
We can’t work magic. The important thing for us is that the financial framework conditions have to be there so that we can move up to the second division.
Ralf Heskamp
“We can’t work magic. The important thing for us is that the financial framework conditions have to be there so that we can move up to the second division. The demand is high. It is the biggest task to achieve this. We don’t have to have the biggest budget, but we should be in the top five,” said the 57-year-old.
Thomas Wulf, managing director of GmbH & Co. KGaA, was not yet able to say how high the budget will be in the coming season. First, he said, the DFB’s licensing procedure must be awaited before it can be examined what is possible.
Wald is in good spirits in this respect. “The documents have been submitted on time. We expect to hear back in the next few days. The DFB will critically review them and request additional submissions. This is a standard process. We will close the gap and are already a good step ahead by deferring Schauinsland.”
The hope for long-term success is undoubtedly there. But platitudinous phrases like Wald’s (“We are ready to break new ground and make changes”) alone are certainly not enough. In order to realise promotion by 2025 and to continue the restructuring of the team, fresh money is urgently needed in addition to sporting consistency.
Sponsorship in particular has often been criticised in the past. Wald emphasised that MSV is in fourth place in the 3rd league in terms of marketing revenues and hopes to quickly tap the potential for financially strong backers. Because the Zebras do not have much time left.