Sporting things are going well again at Mainz 05, but financially the club is suffering from the consequences of the pandemic. Board boss Stefan Hofmann wants to get more involved in the medium term.
Mainz 05’s general meeting went less smoothly than the match against FC Augsburg. Because the live stream weakened in the first hour, the agenda for the hybrid event could only be worked through after a long break. There was much praise during the general meeting for sporting director Christian Heidel, sporting director Martin Schmidt and coach Bo Svensson. “The triumvirate is a stroke of luck for our club. You can’t get more Mainz 05,” said supervisory board chairman Dr. Volker Baas.
After sensationally staying out of the 2020/21 division, the team has made a good start to the season, but performances swing sharply up or down. “The key word is consistency,” stressed Svensson, who expects his team to face Arminia Bielefeld in the DFB Cup on Tuesday.
The pandemic has left clear traces
There is the opportunity to further advertise a visit to the Mewa Arena, which the Nullfünfern managed impressively in their 4:1 win against Augsburg. After reaching a new season high of 19,400 spectators, also due to the regulation situation, there are hopes at FSV that there could be a sell-out stadium for the first time at the end of next week against Borussia Mönchengladbach, which would equate to 25,000 spectators.
Higher ticketing revenues would be most welcome to the club, as the pandemic has also left its mark on the 05 balance sheet. Commercial director Dr. Jan Lehmann put the 2020/21 loss at 10.2 million euros on a turnover of 96.9 million euros. The club’s equity fell accordingly to 37.2 million euros. For the current season, FSV expects a loss of 19 million euros according to the financial plan. Turnover is expected to fall to 83 million euros in 2021/22. Depreciation, most of which relates to player assets, will fall from 25.9 to 18.3 million euros.
“The focus must be on economic stability. Our task is to stabilise income and, of course, to reduce costs without jeopardising the club’s development,” is how Stefan Hofmann, the club’s chairman and CEO, describes the objective. Hofmann wants to “get the construction of an organisation building back on the agenda”. The plan to bring together the various club locations at Bruchweg had also fallen into the background because of Corona.
Hofmann should be more involved
The idea of involving Hofmann more than before at Mainz 05 is also being pushed forward. The 58-year-old head of department already works a reduced schedule at the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Education in order to fulfil his honorary duties at Mainz 05. For this, he received an expense allowance of 108,000 euros in 2020/21 plus 18,826.60 euros for “other”, as the balance sheet shows. This includes travel expenses, car use, VIP ticket and social security contributions.
Hofmann has sounded out with his employer that a complete leave of absence would be possible for his term at FSV. Together with the 05 supervisory board, a plan is now to be worked out under which framework conditions Hofmann could work for the club full-time, so to speak.