An anonymous letter accuses Alfons Hörmann of spreading a “culture of fear” as President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation. The DOSB tip reacts – but above all by pursuing the authors. An investigation now finds that Hörmann behaved incorrectly.
The actions of the former top management of the German Olympic Sports Confederation around ex-President Alfons Hörmann apparently showed “no criminally relevant misconduct”, but were “questionable”. This is the conclusion reached by a commission led by former DOSB Vice President Christa Thiel and former judge at the Federal Court of Justice Clemens Basdorf.
Hörmann was replaced by Thomas Weikert as DOSB boss in December 2021. The 61-year-old had drawn the consequences of the affair about an anonymous letter from employees and decided not to run after eight years in office. In the letter, he was also accused of creating a “culture of fear” at the DOSB headquarters. The investigation also dealt with the behavior of the former CEO Veronika Rücker.
The focus is on dealing with the anonymous letter, which criticized Hörmann’s management style on behalf of the DOSB staff and stated a “culture of fear” in the association. After the publication of this letter, the DOSB leadership had two language reports prepared in order to locate the author. The suspicion arose that the former DOSB board member Karin Fehres was the author. This was then put under pressure to admit authorship – otherwise legal action threatened. Fehres denied the allegation and made the process public.
“President Hörmann’s management style (…) was questionable in terms of the respectful interaction required by the statutes and good governance rules. The same applies to the behavior of the management bodies, namely the decisively active tandem president/CEO, in overcoming the crisis as a whole: Appropriate self-criticism and willingness to reform were not sufficiently communicated,” the report said.
“Even with some distance, I am of the opinion that we, as the former management team of the DOSB, have handed over an organizationally well-positioned and economically sound association. Together we have been able to achieve a lot of positive things for sports Germany in the past eight years,” Hörmann commented on the report. “I can understand that some of our decisions in these difficult times were not always pleasant and sometimes difficult to understand without the appropriate background information.” But he was always concerned with the matter.
