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FC Köln's Horst Heldt to Söder: 'Populist shit' terms

By Henrik Petersen

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Bavaria's Prime Minister, Markus Söder, suggested that the well paid players should accept a waiver of the salary to help their clubs during the economic crisis.


The demand for financial solidarity from football millionaires caused FC Köln's sporting director, Horst Heldt, to respond in a live interview with Bild:

"I think it would make perfect sense to hold back on populist shit,"



And continued:

"My expectation is that politics will lead and give people a plan and not move into areas with suggestions, just to be populist."

Heldt then pointed out "that football professionals have a social conscience" and that he finds it outrageous and presumptuous to question this publicly.

Heldt did not want to rule out the possibility that players would discuss salaries as soon as it was clear which conditions the Bundesliga and the clubs would be facing.


But instead of focusing on the relatively few millionaires, he said that the focus should be on the more than 50.000 people that make a living in the German football industry.

He pointed out that several of the smaller clubs could face bankruptcy if the crisis drags out. And this could be a threat to the entire Bundesliga, not just the clubs that are currently threatened on their existence.

Heldt identified the real problem as a rather dystopic scenario that could be the result if the rest of the season is not played to the end:

"If half of the clubs in the first and second leagues are gone next year, I don't know how to hold a league."




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