Dietmar Hopp transformed a village club into a Bundesliga team – Börsen-Zeitung

He’s one who has felt first-hand the aversion of German football fans towards financial investors, which has recently been manifested in protests against the plans of the DFL to tap into private equity. Dietmar Hopp was subjected to severe insults, including being called a “son of a whore”, by opposing FC Bayern fans almost exactly four years ago in his hometown stadium, where “his” TSG Hoffenheim is resident. The banners in the Bayern fan section marked a preliminary and scandalous climax in a dispute over the influence of financially powerful investors in German football. The former footballer and then CEO of FC Bayern, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, apologized, stating that he “felt ashamed” for the fans, and referred to Hopp as a “man of honour”. Since then, the dispute over the 50+1 rule, which is intended to protect clubs in German professional football from takeovers, has only escalated, with the DFL leadership and fans becoming entrenched.

The co-founder of SAP, who played football as a boy at TSG Hoffenheim and has been a long-time patron, facilitated the club’s ascent from the lower leagues to the Bundesliga. Last year, he took measures in response. In June 2023, the now 83-year-old, who held 96% of the shares in TSG 1899 Hoffenheim Fußball-Spielbetriebs GmbH, returned the majority to TSG. Hopp himself actually considers himself a supporter of the 50+1 rule. “In the course of the debates, it is now important to me to create clear conditions for TSG in accordance with the applicable regulations, to which I have always felt committed”, Hopp announced at the time of the decision. Since 2015, he had control over the club due to a special permit, supporting it not only with generous one-time donations, such as for the construction of a new stadium, but also by making a silent investment of 240 million euros, which solidified the club’s balance sheet. This helped the club endure even loss-making years, especially following the temporary collapse of the player transfer market during the Covid crisis.

Hopp, whose fortune was recently estimated at around 4.5 billion dollars, has invested a total of around 800 million euros in charitable causes, with over half of it going to TSG Hoffenheim. Having served as CEO of SAP from 1988 to 1998 and later overseeing the company as a member of the supervisory board until 2003, Dietmar Hopp, who co-founded the software giant in Walldorf in 1972, founded the Dietmar Hopp Foundation in 1995. Its assets consist of SAP shares from Hopp’s ownership. He transferred two-thirds of his shares to the foundation. The institution is one of the largest private foundations in Europe and invests in the fields of sport, medicine, social affairs, and education. The foundation is actively involved in climate protection, which is also a pressing concern for Hopp, as he frequently emphasizes.

The billionaire has invested even more money in biotechnology than in football. His most well-known investment is the Nasdaq-listed company Curevac, which entered the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine but had to admit failure in 2021. Hopp received billions from the IPO on the Nasdaq. The extension of the phrase “ownership entails obligations” to “and wealth even more so” is attributed to the SAP founder. He once said that those who have become as wealthy as he has, have a duty to give something back. This holds especially true for football. Hopp said in this context: “I remember exactly how much sport has given me.”