Rot-Weiß Oberhausen is the first regional league club in Germany to launch a bond on the market. Whether it will actually be implemented is not yet certain.

In an interview with Forecasting before the start of the subscription period on February 2, 2024, then RWO chairman Thorsten Binder and supervisory board chairman Damian Schröder were optimistic. Binder has since resigned. And the so-called cloverleaf bond is in danger of failing.

On Monday evening, just four days before the end of the subscription period, not even half of the minimum acceptance threshold of 250,000 euros had been reached. At 6 p.m., packages had been subscribed for 121,500 euros. In the past four days, only 5,500 euros have been added.

Even more serious: to date, only 81 investors have declared their willingness to invest in the bond, which has a term of seven years and a basic yield of four percent. The cloverleaf bond was also explicitly aimed at RWO fans. The denomination was set low at 250 euros. This was intended to give supporters the opportunity to participate directly in a positive future for the club. Bonus payments would be made for milestones such as promotion to the 3rd division, staying in the league or winning the Lower Rhine Cup.

The idea behind this was, on the one hand, to tackle the promotion to the 3rd division planned in the medium term in sporting terms, but also to invest in the infrastructure in and around the Niederrhein stadium. Oberhausen should also position itself for the future, for example by purchasing an LED advertising board, in order to gain other economic opportunities with sponsors.

All of this now seems to be shaky. They are not yet satisfied, but it is often only in the last few days that there is movement on a bond, explained interim boss Hajo Sommers last week. Apparently, potential investors are still needed to invest significantly higher amounts than the minimum in order to reach the minimum amount of 250,000 euros. Or the decision could be made to extend the subscription period. Supervisory Board Chairman Damian Schröder had not ruled this out either.

In any case, nobody is talking about the maximum amount of two million euros at which the bond was to be capped.