Axel Hafer
Appearances
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
Yeah, I remember. I was actually at the presentation of Gazprom with my daughter. So yeah, it was 2007. She was four years old. So first time that she was in the stadium.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
When Gazprom was presented, they basically shot a commercial where you had Gazprom employees somewhere in Siberia that were drilling for gas. And that was very similar to the mining images that we all had in our minds. So it looked like a very good fit. It was actually a good fit at that time.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
Everybody was happy. It was, oh, this is a good deal. This is a very big company. It's very important. It's a good partner. Relationships with Russia have historically been very good between Germany and Russia. So in 2007, I would say absolutely fine.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
We are not only getting a very good deal and getting better money for what we are offering than with other partners, we were not getting that for free. So I guess the price for that was obviously political greenwashing, if you want to say so, but also the risk that something would happen. Something did.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
It started to be more and more controversial. I guess from an economical perspective, it was financially still a very attractive deal. But the discussion that we had at that time was, OK, is it worth the risk?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
politics yeah so you have different views there and we have 190 000 members so you have everything from the far left to the far right i mean everything there yeah so in the board some people were a bit more skeptical some said okay it's still a good partner yes there are political problems but uh we are sports club and that's not our problem yeah so for me personally i mean i never bought a gas problem jersey yeah so um so because i just thought okay yeah no doesn't doesn't feel right
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
And then... Right now, there is a sound of bombardment coming from all around us. And all of the civilians from this area are fleeing. I still remember that week. Absolutely crazy. So you basically had the troops starting to move, and it was obvious that something could happen.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
it was highly likely that something would happen. And so just the weekend before the invasion, we started to get enormous pressure. Okay, you need to terminate the contract, you need to take Gazprom off your jersey, etc.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
We're not the richest club, and we'll never be the richest club. And our fans are not the richest. But it's a very emotional club, and that's obviously what's more important than anything else. So you need to keep the feeling of belonging and really helping each other. That is more important than a bit more money, as long as it doesn't kill you. That's the thing.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
Exactly. And that was exactly the challenge that we all had was, okay, are we willing to risk the existence of the club to do the right thing? And how could we actually de-risk that scenario?
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
So during that week, I basically did nothing else than just talking 24-7 with everybody. Because obviously everybody was very nervous, and this balance of what is exactly the right point in time where we can basically manage the financial risk and still do the right thing, we had to find it.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
We started discussions with the old mining association. So the company that used to operate all the mines is still active and has a few assets. And we basically went to them and said, listen, if something happens, is there anything that we could do? And they said, yeah, for sure, we will help you. If you need to do it, we will support you.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
We will basically find some money and we will basically step in as an interim sponsor.
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil
And then we had on Thursday morning, 4 a.m., or I can't remember the exact time, it was basically before everybody got up, obviously the invasion started.