“So at this moment, the club does not expect a significant reduction in the budget or an increase in it. There will be no drastic adjustments, the budget should be balanced. There will be no big sales or pointless purchases right now. In time, we will look for solutions to function healthily,” says Šádek, who is now “just” the chairman of the board of directors.
The majority owner is the newly established company FCVP GmbH. Three legal entities and four natural persons stand behind the company registered in Austria. The main share is held by Delli Sport Invest AG with almost 38 percent. Its head is the Swiss Martin Dellenbach, at the same time the executive of the newly established company and the second member of Viktoria’s three-member board of directors. The last to join the party is the Austrian Raphael Landthaler.
The aforementioned trio is logically keeping the information with which budget Viktoria will work now. Previously, the sum was around 200 to 250 million crowns a year when the club was not playing European cups. In the case of better seasons and higher incomes, the amount increased by tens of millions.
Photo: Robert Neumann
The new owners of football Pilsen (from left, Martin Dellenbach, Raphael Landthaler and Martin Brucker) with member of the club’s supervisory board Jaroslav Hamouz and chairman of the board Adolf Šádek at Thursday’s press conference in Pilsen.
“It is very important that we have an economically stable club. Of course we will want to grow, but we certainly didn’t come here with the intention of embarking on an adventure. We want to build the club on the good foundations it has from the people here. We have seen a lot of stadiums and clubs around Europe, everything here is at a good level. Of course we have to invest, but the foundations are really good,” says the chairman of the supervisory board, Martin Bruckner, who previously held, among other things, the post of president of the famous Rapid Wien.
Of course, any bonus beyond the planned income is always nice. For Czech clubs, the reward for participating in the basic group of European cups represents a non-negligible financial injection and, as mentioned at the beginning of the text, for Pilsen last season it was even an existential one.
New sports goals are closely related to economic stability. “We are looking for a solution to function healthily, without major risks and to be self-sufficient. We always had to play cups, sell players. We still had to do something. We don’t want to have to now,” smiles Šádek with satisfaction.
Dellenbach speaks similarly. In 2022, he joined the Austrian first league club TSV Hartberg as capital, where he builds and manages a large academy. The Swiss is also the chairman of the second division Austrian club SV Lafnitz. Pilsen is now at the top of this pyramid.
“Nobody will say that they don’t want to play European cups and maybe even the Champions League. We talked about the development of talents, it is important for us that Pilsen is at the top of our club rankings and must play at the top of its league. Clubs in Austria don’t have to, the task is to stay there. The demands in Pilsen are higher, we have to work hard on that every day. We hope to qualify for Europe on a regular basis,” reports Dellenbach.
It is said that it is important for investors that Viktoria occupies the position of the number one football player in its region, which can have up to a million inhabitants. “It is a traditional club, especially in the last 15 years it has had a lot of success. On the national and international stage,” explains Landthaler, who in the past sat in the chair for finance and development director at Rapid Wien or served on the board of the Austrian league.
Currently, it is unlikely that someone would depose Victoria from the pyramid within the owned entities. At the moment, the Austrians or the Swiss are not planning to further expand and acquire a stake in an even bigger club than Pilsen.
“We’re not going any higher, if I speak purely for myself. One should never say no, but I think the decision to go to Pilsen was made because of the progressive platform for players. We now have everything we need for player development. We have to concentrate on that, we have a lot of work ahead of us,” explains Dellenbach.
2023-07-21 00:23:04
#economic #adventure #stability #Pilsen #dont #Sport.cz
