Plasticine from New York | Unity

• ofDaniel Schmitt

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The US investor David Blitzer joins FC Augsburg and has big plans.

David Blitzer likes sports, preferably ice hockey and basketball – of course, he is American and lives in New York City, so the NHL and NBA naturally get a lot of attention. And when you are the global head of a listed stock corporation and a multimillionaire at that, you like to invest your money in sport. Blitzer is co-owner of the basketball players from Philadelphia and the ice hockey cracks of the New Jersey Devils.

But the father of the family has long since discovered another business field for himself, away from home, once across the Atlantic in Europe: football. He has held shares in the Premier League club Crystal Palace for a long time, as well as in the Belgian first division club Waasland-Beveren and, more recently, in the Bundesliga club FC Augsburg.

In February, Blitzer took over 45 percent of the shares in the outsourced stock corporation at the FCA for a nominal value of 5.5 million euros. His good friend, the fire protection entrepreneur and FCA President Klaus Hofmann, had arranged the deal, “David”, according to Hofmann, is namely a “sports mania”. One with a lot, a lot of money. Blitzer takes over the shares of Thilo Sauter, Detlef Dinzel and Marcus Höfl, the husband of ex-ski star Maria Höfl-Riesch, all of whom are leaving the supervisory board.

In the rather tranquil Bundesliga location Augsburg, the investor’s entry caused quite a bit of irritation, mainly because the club only officially announced the deal, which had already been fixed in February, last week – mind you after a fan group had made it public. A thoroughly unsuccessful communication from the club. Of course, Blitzer does not want to interfere in the day-to-day business of the Augsburgers, who are competing at Eintracht Frankfurt this Tuesday (8.30 p.m.). Hofmann himself remains the sole managing director of the company, and there is no place on the supervisory board for his Spezi.

Sure, the investor has an interest in the FCA holding the class. Most recently, the eleventh place in the table against Schalke (0: 1) and Bielefeld (0: 0) presented themselves like a relegated team – that was nothing. After all: With 33 points, the team of coach Heiko Herrlich, who is on the yellow-blocked Rani Khedira and Daniel Caligiuri, has a well-mannered cushion of seven points on the relegation zone.

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