FC St. Pauli selling stadium to fans

Article posted by Coliseum, November 8^th, 2024

Image: FC St. Pauli (Facebook)

German football club FC St. Pauli (FCSP) has unveiled plans to sell its home stadium to fans in a bid to improve the club’s finances and make it more competitive.

The Athletic said beginning this month, the club will start selling a majority stake in the Millerntor-Stadion to their own supporters after forming the first cooperative in football history.

St Pauli do not accept commercial income from gambling or cryptocurrency firms, among other industries, and that has helped preserve its identity, but at the cost of revenue, which impacts the club’s ability to win matches.

The team is competing in the Bundesliga in the 2024–25 season following promotion and is struggling to win matches.

Fußball-Club St. Pauli von 1910 e.V., commonly known as simply FC St. Pauli is a German professional football club based in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg.

Millerntor-Stadion is a multi-purpose stadium in the St. Pauli area of Hamburg, Germany. Best known as the home ground of football club FC St. Pauli, it is on the Heiligengeistfeld near the Reeperbahn. The stadium had a capacity of 32,000 when it was built in 1961.

The club recently presented its plans to over 3,000 of its members and the subscription phase for the Football Cooperative Sankt Pauli 2024 eG begins on 10 November.

FCSP president Oke Göttlich called it the most important project for the club since the stadium new build.

From 10 November, all members, fans, well-wishers and other interested parties can purchase shares in the FCSP eG (registered cooperative society). Each share costs €850, consisting of €750 for the share, €32 in management fees and €68 for reserves for the co-op.

The sale of the shares is intended to raise as much as €30 million, with which the cooperative will purchase a majority stake in Millerntor-Stadion.

The Millerntor is worth an estimated €60 million. The plan is to sell shares in the new cooperative and then use the resulting revenue to purchase a controlling stake in the stadium — raising up to €30 million in the process. The club will use those funds to pay off debt, including from the pandemic shutdown, and invest in its sporting infrastructure.

Club president Oke Göttlich said, “The cooperative is the perfect model for FC St. Pauli. It gives members and fans a stake under application of a general democratic rule – everyone has one vote irrespective of the number of shares purchased.

“It’s the most important project for FC St. Pauli since the Millerntor Stadium new build. We aim to show that not only is a different kind of football possible but also a different kind of financing!”

As Wilken Engelbracht, FC St. Pauli commercial director and member of the cooperative supervisory board, explained: “The injection of new capital via a cooperative is much more relatable to members than a spin-off of the professional football section, an involvement of investors or the sale of merchandise rights.

“The only question really is why no one thought of it before – the world’s first cooperative in professional football.”

Members of the new cooperative will have the right to propose and vote on new business initiatives relating to the stadium, the level of annual dividend that they will receive, and the social, cultural and sporting activities that take place at the Millerntor.

Essentially, they will determine what happens at the stadium whenever it’s not being used for football.

The cooperative managing board is made up of Andreas Borcherding (chair), Miriam Wolframm, Thomas Collien and Christopher Heinemann.

“We have the great honour of being responsible for the first cooperative in the professional game anywhere in the world,” said Borcherding.

Commenting on the announcement made by FC Schalke 04 concerning the formation of its own cooperative, the FCSP eG managing board said: “Although the Schalke project looks a bit different, we think it’s a great step because we’re convinced by the cooperative model and are happy to see additional associates in the football world.”

The subscription phase is set to run until the end of January 2025.

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