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Opponents Gegenbauer (left) and Windhorst at a Hertha press conference in February 2022
Photo: Andreas Gora/dpa
Among supporters of the troubled football club Hertha BSC, some have long wondered about the way in which the longstanding and now former president Werner Gegenbauer was approached.
And above all: by whom.
Among other things, there were these strange accounts on the short message service Twitter, which had never had much to do with football before.
Many of them were only registered in August 2021 - at the end of 2021 some of them suddenly discovered their interest in the dispute between the then still incumbent Gegenbauer and his adversary, the financial entrepreneur and major Hertha investor Lars Windhorst.
Now the "Financial Times" is also expressing the suspicion that there was more behind various attacks on Gegenbauer than just the displeasure of disappointed Hertha fans (click here for the article) .
According to information from the newspaper, Windhorst is said to have commissioned a private Israeli security company with a campaign against Gegenbauer, who finally left office in May after 14 years.
The company called Shibumi Strategy Limited orchestrated "a covert operation" against Gegenbauer for a year, according to the "FT".
Windhorst vehemently denies this.
Windhorst's spokesman, Andreas Fritzenkötter, described the report to the television station NTV as "complete nonsense".
One is now trying "to find out for oneself how the article came about," Fritzenkötter told SPIEGEL.
Shibumi boss Ori Gur-Ari also told the »FT«,
Editor's note
) must have made a mistake".
Cheated payment?
However, according to »FT«, court documents from a district court in Tel Aviv support the allegations.
SPIEGEL also has a document that suggests this.
The process revolves around paying for the campaign.
According to the newspaper, the security company had filed a lawsuit because Windhorst's company Tennor had failed to comply with a contractual agreement to pay one million euros for eight months of work.
In addition, a performance-related payment of a further four million euros was verbally agreed.
According to »FT«, the court documents show that Windhorst commissioned Shibumi to »plan and develop a strategy« to increase his own reputation.
According to the report, a 20-person team of employees of the Israeli company contacted Gegenbauer sympathizers, opponents of the president and family members online and in person.
It was about conducting an influence campaign against the football official, the newspaper said.
Shibumi set up online profiles that made it appear that Hertha fans were criticizing Gegenbauer.
The company also paid for critical caricatures about the club boss.
According to »FT«, one should show him as a grim reaper.
Accordingly, a website of an alleged "Gegenbauer Raus" movement was set up along with a news channel of the same name on the Telegram messenger service.
It is unclear how great the influence of the alleged campaign on the power struggle at Hertha BSC could actually have been.
According to »FT«, the supposed client Windhorst is said to have expressed dissatisfaction with Shibumi's work.
There is a "big discrepancy between your perception of the value you have brought in the past and the reality of how things have developed," according to the newspaper, Windhorst wrote to Shibumi boss Gur-Ari in May 2022.
The lawsuit in Tel Aviv was dropped shortly after the FT article appeared today.
Hertha does not want to comment further on the matter, but points out that Tennor has assured the club that the story is "complete nonsense".
The club's supervisory board is meeting tonight - Windhorst should also be an issue there again.
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