Hertha BSC rarely rests. After the club showed new unity this season, a report by the “Financial Times” is now causing a stir. With the help of an Israeli security company, Lars Windhorst is said to have tried to overthrow the old president. The Hertha investor denies that.
Hertha BSC has been quiet for far too long. After turbulent years, the capital club had recently presented itself as a unit despite the ongoing sporting misery. Calm had returned under the new President Kay Bernstein. But almost 100 days after the election of the beacon of hope, there is renewed excitement in Berlin’s West End. The focus is, how could it be otherwise, investor Lars Windhorst. He and his holding company, Tennor, are said to have been sued again. This time before a district court in Tel Aviv. By an Israeli company called Shibumi Strategy Limited.
“According to a lawsuit, the German financier Lars Windhorst hired an Israeli secret service to orchestrate the overthrow of the then president of the Bundesliga soccer club Hertha BSC,” writes the “Financial Times”. A 20-person team from the Israeli company is said to have been tasked with a campaign aimed at overthrowing then-President Werner Gegenbauer. Windhorst’s spokesman, Andreas Fritzenkötter, described the report to ntv.de as “complete nonsense”.
The long-standing Hertha president resigned after the hard-won relegation in the relegation games against Hamburger SV. Of their own free will, but certainly under pressure from the members. For a long time he had been at odds with Windhorst, who declared in spring 2022 that he saw no basis for further cooperation. “He set the club on fire,” explained Gegenbauer after his resignation in the Berlin “Tagesspiegel”: “Windhorst is responsible for a split that has made the club and all departments very insecure.”
The subject of the lawsuit in Israel is said to be discrepancies as to whether the order was successfully carried out or not. Windhorst is said to have breached his contract by not paying one million euros for eight months of work and a verbally agreed performance bonus of four million euros.
In addition to the fall of Gegenbauer, it should also have been about improving the reputation of the investor at Hertha BSC. Shibumi is said to have succeeded in identifying a person behind an unwelcome Twitter account. The account is said to have had the handle “Wundersplat” and thus referred to Windhorst’s earned nickname “Wunderkind” in the 1990s.
Much of the Financial Times’ report, based on court documents, relates to attempts to oust Gegenbauer through online and offline campaigns. The campaign, which is said to be codenamed “Euro 2020”, should – in addition to attempts to influence the direct Gegenbauer environment in the family and the club – also gain momentum in the social networks.
Numerous fake profiles are said to have been created, a caricaturist commissioned and a website called “Sportfreax” created. In fact, there are still traces on the Internet that could point to this. In autumn 2021, more and more accounts appeared that otherwise had no connection to Hertha BSC and were now stirring up opposition to Gegenbauer.
A caricaturist, unknown in the fan scene, was giving interviews at that time and spoke about his work. Caricatures of counter-builders with devil horns mentioned in the Financial Times report can be found on an Instagram account. In addition, journalists should be identified who could stir up feelings against the then President with their reporting. The report by the “Financial Times” leaves open whether this happened.
The allegations against Windhorst come at a bad time for Hertha BSC. Next Tuesday, 100 days after the election of the new president, he is scheduled to appear in a media session with Kay Bernstein. In order to show the new unity in the club to the outside world. Windhorst has invested a total of 374 million euros in the club since 2019 and in return received 64.7 percent of the shares in Hertha BSC KGaA.
