The mismanagement of the previous club management and a legal misjudgment are at the root of the decline. Because of a transfer ban, Cologne may be at risk of an even deeper fall.
Missed out on relegation: the players of 1. FC Köln (with Florian Kainz in the middle of the picture) after the goalless draw against SC Freiburg on Saturday.
Ralf Treese / Imago
Sedated by a small remaining hope, the supporters of 1. FC Köln did what they rarely do after the 0-0 draw against SC Freiburg. They simply remained silent. Captain Florian Kainz found this silence “very strange” at the moment when only those who believed in miracles could still hope that the traditional club would remain in the Bundesliga.
Cologne has not yet definitely been relegated because Mainz in the relegation place (five points ahead) – and theoretically also 15th Union Berlin (six points ahead) – can still be caught mathematically with two games remaining. Cologne must win the direct duel against Union in the home game next Saturday.
The main reason for the decline caught the eye of every attentive observer on Saturday: This team tries hard, fights and has “character”, as coach Timo Schultz said once again after the game. But Cologne are simply incredibly harmless in front of the opposing goal.
A good idea becomes fatal
The Bundesliga has rarely experienced a weaker offensive in its 60 years of existence; 24 goals scored in 32 games are simply not enough to stay in the league. Those in charge have long since admitted that they made serious mistakes in squad planning, and yet there is a certain tragedy underlying this decline. Because one of the most important causes is a very sensible idea.
Before the current executive committee took over the club leadership in 2019, the club pursued a strategy that worked out just as poorly as the squad planning this year: bold investments should make successes, ideally European Cup participation, and thus significant increases in income possible. However, because the hoped-for success mostly failed to materialize, a mountain of debt arose. During the pandemic, the club was in danger of collapsing and the FC was a “restructuring case,” said sports director Christian Keller when he took office in spring 2022.
So it was renovated. “We want to break the vicious circle of opportunistic measures of the past 35 years,” President Wolf reiterated last week. In the current season, the management is “for the first time in many, many years, able to maintain FC operations without special income, i.e. without transfer income, income from European competition or the early tapping of future income.” Critics say the club has “failed to save money”.
Because those responsible thought that the successful trainer Steffen Baumgart would sort things out. After all, with a similarly small budget, he led the team into the Conference League in 2022 and into safe table regions the following year. Many players had developed excellently; They let Baumgart’s emotional nature drive them to play attractive, high-intensity football.
FIFA is prosecuting Cologne for financial irregularities
However, the assumption that things would just continue like this turned out to be a mistake that turned into a catastrophe because it was precisely at this stage that the World Football Association (Fifa) announced a transfer ban due to irregularities in the signing of a youth player. The management and the presidium repeatedly missed the opportunity to avert this penalty through an out-of-court settlement, so that the weak squad could not be strengthened through transfers last winter. And next summer no new players will be allowed to come in, which is why skeptics even believe that a fall into the third division is possible in the event of relegation.
It is tragic: Economically, reason and humility should be the basis for a better future, but in the proceedings with FIFA, the old hubris of this football club became a trap because those responsible misjudged the legal situation.
The club management still wants to remain in office, which caused outrage in some newspapers. And an opposition lurking in the background around former player Dieter Prestin is planning a coup. It was still quiet in the stadium on Saturday, but the time for new trench warfare over the future of the club has long since begun.