Görlich at Hertha BSC: Not a strong man, but a team player

These potentially potential headlines never materialized: "Ralf Rangnick turns Hertha BSC around" or "Oliver Kahn instills the Bayern gene at Hertha." Imagine if Ralf Rangnick (nickname: Professor) or Oliver Kahn (nickname: Titan) had been given the important position of Hertha BSC's new managing director...

However, the contract was awarded to Dr. Peter Görlich, a sports scientist and Master of Business. The 58-year-old will take up his position in Berlin on September 1st and will form the management team together with Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer Ralf Huschen. Görlich has many accomplishments, having successfully served as CEO of Bundesliga club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim from 2015 to 2021, where he positively developed TSG as a whole. Before his time as CEO, he headed TSG's youth academy, which enjoys an excellent reputation.

The executive board had held intensive discussions with Görlich, an experienced strategist, as well as with Rangnick and Kahn, as well as a number of other candidates, and explored their ambitions, future plans, availability, and also their affinity for Hertha.

Rangnick, currently the Austrian national coach, and Kahn, who recently applied to be an investor in the heavily indebted French club Girondins Bordeaux but later declined, were undoubtedly the most colorful personalities Hertha had considered. However, Hertha wasn't looking for a sporting director or a "super manager."

All that remains is a rhetorical question: What would Rangnick have done in Berlin? Perhaps he would have introduced the intense pressing and transitional play with which he once transformed RB Leipzig into a top team? But Rangnick would likely have become a kind of "autocrat" in the Hertha universe, where even more purely footballing expertise could certainly be used. The same applies to Oliver Kahn, who might have signed a courageous and aggressive world-class goalkeeper, the type he once embodied. The 2002 World Cup runner-up is also probably more suited as a solo entertainer than a team player.

There have been enough strong autocrat at Hertha

By choosing Peter Görlich, Hertha is consciously opting for a versatile “team player” – and not for a new strong man, of which there have been many of different stripes in the club’s turbulent history.

As a young reporter, I met such dominant personalities, such as Wolfgang Holst, a Bundesliga veteran and a power broker par excellence. As president of Hertha, he made drastic announcements to the competition during transfers: "We always pay 10,000 marks more!" The building contractor and former president Heinz Roloff also knew his status. When he once stood a few steps too far on the pitch during a game on Osloer Straße, the referee cautioned him. Roloff snapped back: "With the money I've put into the club, I can stand wherever I want!"

Hertha Supervisory Board Chairman Robert Schwan, Franz Beckenbauer's former manager, also once played a dominant role. The shrewd networker's credo was: "I only know two sensible people – Robert Schwan in the morning and Robert Schwan in the afternoon!" Other powerful influences included Dieter Hoeneß as CEO, long-time president Werner Gegenbauer, long-time manager Michael Preetz, and former sporting director Fredi Bobic.

At the latest after the first team, the amateur team, and the U-19 team were spun off in May 2002 as part of the professionalization process and Hertha BSC GmbH & Co. KGaA was formed, the balance of power between the KGaA management and the club's executive committee shifted. Sometimes the managing directors' influence on overall policy increased, sometimes that of the president. A balance of equals appears to exist between the future managing director duo of Peter Görlich and Ralf Huschen and President Fabian Drescher. Whether this will continue will certainly also depend on sporting success.