Praise for sports director Krösche
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Eintracht Frankfurt has developed extremely positively in recent years – both sportily and economically. In order to put the financial side on a sustainable footing, the 2022 Europa League winner announced at the general meeting the plan to issue around 370,000 new shares in 2025 and thus increase equity by around 66 million euros. In an interview with “Bild”, board spokesman Axel Hellmann explained the measure, outlined the development of the squad value and praised sports director Markus Krösche for it.
“The fact that we need capital is not an expression of a lack of ideas because we don’t know how to create value, but rather an expression of a clear concept that we started with six or seven years ago under Fredi Bobic,” said Hellmann , who is also a member of the DFL executive committee and ran the business there between 2022 and 2023. At the beginning of the implementation of the concept, Eintracht was neither economically at the current level nor internationally relevant enough to attract great talent from home and abroad – things are different today:
“We are now doing a better job economically, we don’t have a squad value of 150 or 180 million, but rather around 300. That’s why we also have to maintain a different level of capital, including in the licensing process. Because a DFL does not recognize the assets in the player area on paper. It only recognizes what liquidity is guaranteed and in the account. The gap has become larger and larger due to the high values in the squad and we now have to close it. This is only possible through equity. To be able to continue on the path we have started.”
How Eintracht Frankfurt increased its squad value
Under Bobic, Eintracht increased the transfer market squad value from 71 million to 227 million euros between 2016 and 2021 – the current record of 320.6 million euros has been set since Krösche took over. In the last three and a half years, Eintracht generated a transfer increase of 82.4 million euros from 76 players released – only RB Leipzig achieved a larger profit in Germany (in terms of transfer balances). 244.8 million euros in replacements are offset by 162.4 million euros spent on new additions to the SGE. The possibly impending second most expensive departure in the club’s history from Omar Marmoush (25) to Manchester City (all information about the rumor) is of course not taken into account.
Hellmann continued: “We had a good squad three years ago. One with which we won the Europa League. But the squad wasn’t, as I would call it, turned to our side. Because we had players who were not economically viable for us, but who left us for free because their contracts were expiring. That’s why what Markus Krösche has done in the last two and a half years is great. This is an incredible increase in value for our Eintracht.”
Only the contracts of veteran Timothy Chandler (34) and those of Rasmus Kristensen (27) and Arthur Theate (24), who were loaned out with a purchase option, expire in the summer. In recent years, the Hessians have had to let Evan Ndicka (25) leave for free. Players like Ante Rebić (31) and Filip Kostić (32) went well below market value due to their contract configurations. The examples of Marmoush or that of record departure Randal Kolo Muani (26) – for 95 million euros to PSG – show that Eintracht has developed further in this way.
Hellmann: Eintracht cannot yet be compared with Bayern & Co
Nevertheless, Hellmann does not want to put his club, for which he has worked since 2001, on the same level as Bayern Munich, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund – all of them have significantly higher squad values (for the ranking). “You should classify things realistically.” The clubs mentioned are “still very, very far away from Eintracht Frankfurt when it comes to investments in the squad and personnel costs. The top 4 actually play their own competition if everything always goes according to the financial possibilities.” In order to regularly reach the Champions League, Frankfurt “still lacks experience on the squad side. You need that in the mix with the young players in order to become a Champions League contender in the long term.”
