fInanzamt, dentist, parents’ evening: Appointments that can hurt. Normally, going to Hamburg City Hall is not one of them. Built in neo-Renaissance style, hundreds of people visit the architecturally magnificent building on the small Alster, the seat of the Hamburg Parliament and Senate, every day. Thomas Wüstefeld must have expected that there would not be a pleasant hour waiting for him last Thursday when he entered the walls. The unconcealed dislike of the politicians may have surprised the notoriously confident CFO of Hamburger SV.
Wüstefeld had come to explain the club’s financial distress. In 2020, the city bought the stadium property from HSV for 23.5 million euros. The money was to be used to refurbish the arena so that Hamburg would remain the venue for the 2024 European Championship. But instead of replacing the roof, floodlights and sound system, HSV used the tax money to compensate for the loss of income during the Corona crisis. It was issued by Wüstefeld’s predecessor, Frank Wettstein, and the current Sports Director, Jonas Boldt.
