How close are the lines between Dietmar Hopp and Roger Wittmann, the founder of the consulting agency Rogon? A kicker research shows: Hopp has recently been connected to a club in Brazil through a company structure that Rogon allegedly built.
The patron and the advisor: Dietmar Hopp and Roger Wittmann are friends. Their dealings repeatedly aroused suspicion.
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Transfer deals between TSG Hoffenheim and its patron and main shareholder Hopp with Wittmann have already caused criticism. Most recently when the Football Leaks revealed details of Transfair rights collecting society’s involvement in the deal with Roberto Firmino. Firmino is advised by Rogon and moved from Hoffenheim to Liverpool in 2015 for the record fee of 41 million euros. A former club employee describes the influence of Transfair on TSG’s personnel planning as follows: “There were ten Brazilians on the table, we said to ourselves: we can’t prevent it, let’s take the best.” However, it is also part of the truth: TSG also did brilliant business with Wittmann’s Brazilians, most recently with Joelinton. The striker came from Recife Sport for € 2million and went to Newcastle United for € 45million in 2019.
Double roles at club and agency
Now the old ties between Hopp and Wittmann seem to be reviving. This conclusion is at least nourished by the companies and people who until recently were behind the Barra Futebol Clube. This is a small club in Balneario Camboriu, a coastal town in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. For example Bogardus AG in Zurich. The lawyer Walter Sticher acts as a board member at Bogardus AG and Sports Media Rights AG (SMR). A trust company behind the SMR, on the other hand, has close connections to companies from the sphere of Christian Rapp, Wittmann’s right-hand man. In addition, Benjamin Pereira Sobrinho, President of Barra FC, works or worked as a Rogon scout, according to the Brazilian media Folha de Sao Paulo and Globoesporte.
He would not be the only one with a dual role as a representative of the club and the consulting agency: According to his profile in the career network Linked-In, Marcos Menezes worked as a scout and market analyst for Rogon from December 2013 – and from 2014 in the same position at Barra FC. The special thing about this club: Although the club, which was founded in January 2013, is bobbing around in the unattractive regional championships B and C, it holds or held the rights to professionals that are well above this level. Among them Yann Rolim (formerly FSV Frankfurt, Karlsruher SC, Vitoria Setubal, Aalborg BK), Matheus Biteco, who died in the tragic plane crash of the Chapecoense team, or the central defender Neris, 56 times for Boavista Porto in Portugal’s 1st division active. The club repeatedly loaned out these players.
The structures lead to Hopp
Recently, Bogardus AG no longer holds the rights to the legal entity behind Barra FC, but a company called Braho Administracao de Bens Ltda .; the structures behind the Braho lead to Hopp via the companies Hobra Verwaltungs-GmbH, Hobra Holding GmbH, DH-Holding GmbH and ILCbesitz GmbH & Co. KG. The seat of the Braho suggests a closeness to the Rogon managers. Apparently the Braho shares an office unit in Balneario Camboriu in Avenida do Estado Dalmo Vieira 2425 with the daughter of Rawi Investimentos Ltda., Founded in 2011 in Porto Alegre, owned by Rapp and Wittmann. According to the Brazilian financial register, the Rawi is in room 401, the Braho in room 401B. Keila Pereira Benigno acts as the representative of the Braho.
Unclear role of the managing director of Rogon-Brasil
The lawyer Pereira Benigno appeared in an older, the kicker transfer contract as a representative of Barra FC, long before the takeover by Braho. The role of the managing director of Rogon-Brasil, Brunno Cesar Alves Ramos, is unclear. In the summer of 2020, he is said to have negotiated the transfer of central defender Neris from Barra to Al-Wasl – the impression is given by a Facebook post from an intermediary agency that is also involved. After Sobrinho and Menezes, it would be the next double role between consulting agency Rogon and Barra FC. Neither TSG nor Hopp nor Rogon answer questions.
Banned TPO evasion vehicle?
The transfer history of the Brazilian club gives the impression that it was created as a vehicle to circumvent the practice of third-party ownership TPO, which was prohibited by FIFA 2015. Critics refer to TPO as a modern form of human trafficking in footballers. So what was created in Balneario Camboriu? An aspiring football club? A branch of TSG Hoffenheim? Or a subsidiary of the Rogon player agency in cooperation with the Bundesliga club?
You can read the entire story with further backgrounds in the Monday edition of kicker or from 10.30 p.m. in eMagazine.
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