While that might be a motivator, the Evergrande football club rejected 3 advances of Barcelona. Why go through all that circus and charade when they are building an economic hub together? Still has a conspiracy ring to it. http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/guan...a-bid-for-paulinho/1wt7fpfaopd7x1isgftjs8pnic
All Germany is with the Reds! Hope this remains Hoffenheim's first and only Champions League appearance.
Hoffenheim is a plastic club, a millionaire's toy. For english teams that has become pretty normal, but in Germany the fans fight actively against it (50+1 rule). Dietmar Hopp (SAP founder) pumped his money out of scale into a village club with no fans and no tradition. For example, when they moved up to 2nd Bundesliga about 10 years ago, Hoffenheim spend the third most on new players in all Germany - only after two Champions League participants. And although they played respectable football as of late, Hoffenheim is a burden for the Bundesliga - no away fans, sometimes even no home fans, and always among the teams with the lowest individual TV ratings. This club - only topped by Leipzig, who are even worse - stands for everything that goes wrong in today's football.
Not sure, many fans are okay with Hoffenheim now. Hopp is a great person and invested heavily into the club he grew up with, they also stopped buying players for millions and are aiming at financial stability. This is 10000x better than what stereotypical investors are doing, he's not really looking at making a profit and has a real connection to the club and region. Hopp is also heavily invested in charities and helping the region. If I became a billionaire, why not help my local team? Nothing wrong with that imo.
Maybe because a bigger evil showed up in Leipzig, but most fans still don't like them. They don't spend a lot anymore because Hopp couldn't handle it and would've risked his fortune. And I'm sad you fell a little to his propaganda: Remember how often he tried to undermine freedom of speech, when media and fans stood up against him. He also has been a horrible employer and treated people like minions - just to name a few things.
He's valued at 10+bil and growing, not sure how Hoffenheim would've been a risk for him. Any source on that? I also think there's a limit to freedom of speech, some of the aggressions that people in the football business have to deal with are disgusting and I absolutely feel like many fans should be punished for their words and banners. I know that SAP isn't the best employer, but that doesn't change the fact that Hopp is engaging in and spending a huge amount of money on charity, way more than the majority of millionaires/billionaires do.
Any source for the 10+bil? Have no idea about his net worth. He himself said he lost 2bil in the economic crisis couple of years ago and in the early years, the club cost him around 50mil per season (probably even more), so he must have been at least a little worried. Maybe the FFP was an issue, too. You can't have a deficit of more than 30mil a year to qualify for international competition. Agree that he does more than most other rich people. Maybe I'm cynical here, with people like him I always suspect other intentions when it comes to charity. Like a lot billionaires, Hopp is very narcissistic is craving for admiration - which is why he reacted so thin-skinned when critics came up strong. Some of them went too far, I agree, but that doesn't legitimate his efforts to affect TV stations and the league itself to erase any negativities about him. The 50+1 rule is the main reason why our football is so stable, probably the most stable in all Europe, and why our stadiums are filled each and every weekend. People like Hopp and his autocratic pursuits threaten that, which is why myself and the majority of the fans will never accept Hoffenheim as a legit part of the Bundesliga.
There are several sources for his estimated net worth, eg Forbes. It is publicly known that Hopp holds around ~10% of SAP's stock, which is also worth near that sum. Regarding you seeing him as a narcissist, I disagree when it comes to charity. "Dietmar Hopp Stitung" is directly financed by his SAP stocks and one of the biggest privately funded in the world, he invested way more money into charity than into football or similar things. There's a ton of interviews where he talks about it and it's obvious he's not doing these things for personal gain. Small article which touches the subject: http://www.zeit.de/sport/2017-01/dietmar-hopp-sap-fussball-investor-soziale-projekte
Don't like that interview. That's basically an ad and not a journalistic work. Maybe Hopp is a better person outside of football. Still doesn't make him as a club official or the club itself more likeable or even legit.
