Leo Kirch emerges from bankruptcy to offer Bundesliga marketing deal
09/10/2007 |
 |
 |
The Bundesliga is ready to sell the league's marketing rights to Leo Kirch again, five years after the German media mogul sent it into turmoil by going bankrupt.
All 36 Bundesliga teams, which includes the first and second-division clubs, will attend a special meeting Tuesday to consider Kirch's offer of euro1.5 billion (US$2.1 billion) for three years.
Negotiations between Kirch and league officials have been under way for weeks.
"We have to listen to every offer," said Juergen Born, head of Werder Bremen and a former Deutsche Bank manager. "Kirch's bankruptcy wasn't deliberate. We will have to examine it and add up the numbers."
The Bundesliga said it will demand firm guarantees backed by top banks to sign a deal with Kirch, whose 2002 bankruptcy of his media empire was among the most spectacular financial collapses in Germany's postwar history.
The Bundesliga was threatened with the loss of nearly euro500 million that season in television money because of Kirch Media's bankruptcy, creating deep holes for clubs who had planned that money into their budget.
The league saved itself through marketing, while clubs slashed expenditures dramatically. For smaller clubs, the loss wiped out nearly half their income.
Kirch's new company, called KF 15, hopes to sell the Bundesliga's marketing rights to television and other media. His offer would represent a 20 percent increase from what the Bundesliga is earning now.
Kirch resurfaced in September after years of being out of the limelight since his empire collapsed. Among its various holding were a huge library of Hollywood films, Pay-Television Premiere and the ProSiebenSat.1 television group.
(Source: The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
|
| Back |
|
|
|
|
 |
