It was around a week ago that the S04 spoke publicly for the first time about setting up a support cooperative at Schalke. CEO Matthias Tillmann announced on social media that he would answer initial questions about the project. In the interview on YouTube he fulfills this promise and also looks at the current sporting situation.
The first part of the conversation is about the Knappen‘s licensed team. After nine games, the S04 is in 14th place in the second division with eight points. A status quo that Tillmann is not at all satisfied with: “14th place at the moment, that’s not enough. We don’t have the time to just look at development – we also have to score points. Each individual must clearly focus on their role and do so with full energy. Everything else is secondary. And we definitely have to improve there.”
With Fürth, Ulm and Regensburg, there are three elementary games ahead of Kees van Wonderen’s team in the league, who is now working on finding the balance between improved defense and forward play, said Tillmann.
In addition to sport, the support cooperative is at the center of the interview. Since the official communication, the club has received questions, comments and opinions from Schalke, so Tillmann wanted to give an initial classification. The question of urgency and necessity came up again and again. However, the 40-year-old made it clear that the cooperative’s project was not an answer to a short-term financial emergency: “We have stable financing. The support cooperative is a construct that fits Schalke very well – solidarity, we achieve something together. This means we remain self-determined.”
The support cooperative is a way with which we can promote infrastructure at Schalke in the future. “There is no risk for the eV through the cooperative, it is an opportunity – in the here and now and for the future,” Tillmann is certain. In the end, what counts is the eternity of the project, he concludes: “The funding cooperative will exist forever and gives us the opportunity to continue to finance specific projects and invest in the future and infrastructure – not just today, but also in ten years . It is a way to shape our future in a self-determined way.”
