Martin Kind was the strong man at Hannover 96 for more than 20 years. On Wednesday evening, the hearing aid entrepreneur was surprisingly dismissed as managing director of the professional football operation at the second division club after a long power struggle. The board of directors of the parent club Hannover 96 e.V. only sent a short message: The 78-year-old had been recalled “with immediate effect for important reasons.” Child himself did not comment.
In concrete terms, this decision means first of all that Kind is still the majority shareholder of the spun-off professional area at the 96ers, but is no longer even allowed to have a say in what belongs to him in the majority. This is ensured by the 50 1 rule, which only limits the influence of external investors in German professional football. According to a report in the “Bild” newspaper in the evening, the e.V. representatives want to have a say in important positions such as the trainer or the sports director in the professional sector. Child, however, always refused. That is the reason for this escalation.
e.V. President Sebastian Kramer told the “Neue Presse” that Kind had been ordered to the club center near the stadium in the evening and informed him of the recall. “He took note of it without comment,” said Kramer. When asked if the club’s management had already found a new professional football boss to succeed Kind, he replied: “Yes.”
The long-standing Bundesliga club has a complicated structure consisting of several companies. The professional football area is in Hannover 96 GmbH
However, Hannover 96 Management GmbH, which in turn is 100 percent owned by the parent association, decides on the management of the KGaA. This ensures that the 50 1 rule also applies to Lower Saxony. Because this rule stipulates that the majority of votes must always remain with the registered club if it spins off its professional football department into a corporation.
Kind was elected president of Hannover 96 in 1997 when the club was playing in the 3rd division. Under him, the return to the Bundesliga, the conversion of the stadium into a World Cup arena – and the spin-off of the professional area succeeded. As a child, after 20 years of promoting his club, just like VfL Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen and 1899 Hoffenheim, wanted to get an exemption from the 50 1 rule in the German Football League, the conflicts came to a head at 96.
Kind’s application was rejected, and opposition within the club grew stronger. When the longtime club boss retired as president of the parent club to only take care of professional football, the members elected in 2019 nothing but child opponents and 50 1 supporters to the top of Hannover 96 e.V.. From then on, the capital and club side worked more against than with each other.
Both sides could never agree on a common candidate for the child’s successor at the top of professional football society. The e.V. leadership rejected Robert Schäfer, who was only committed by Kind and Roßmann in 2021. The conflicts seemed to have calmed down for the time being because Kind used his money to compensate for the losses of the Corona period and put together a highly ambitious new team this summer. But this calm is over.
