Werner Altegoer (18 June 1935 – 9 January 2013) was a German entrepreneur; president and later chairman of the advisory board of football club
VfL Bochum
Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as simply VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club has spent 35 seas ...
. He headed the club from 1993 until 2010, and was named honorary chairman of the supervisory board in 2011.
Entrepreneurial career
Altegoer was born in
Bochum in the
Ruhrgebiet
The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...
-area in western
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. Until the age of 15 he played in the youth sides of local club
VfL Bochum
Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as simply VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club has spent 35 seas ...
. However, at that point he decided to not continue his football career and to commence an apprenticeship in the Bochumer Kohlenkontor, a subsidiary of the coal mine Zeche Vereinigte Constantin der Große.
Subsequent career steps were the Stinnes AG and from 1964 on coal trading company Paul Roskothen GmbH, which he converted from a regional enterprise into a firm group with an international business network.
VfL Bochum
Altegoer maintained his interest for the
VfL Bochum
Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as simply VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club has spent 35 seas ...
and visited regularly the home matches with family member as his parental house was also only at a few hundred meters distance from the
Stadion an der Castroper Straße. His godfather – Willi Altegoer - introduced him to
VfL Bochum
Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as simply VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club has spent 35 seas ...
's then president
Ottokar Wüst. At the end of the 1970s Altegoer involved himself for the first time actively in the club and gave financial support to the transfer of goalgetter
Jochen Abel from
Westfalia Herne
SC Westfalia Herne is a German football club based in Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club was founded on 13 June 1904 by the sons of the more well-heeled residents of the city as a rival to the worker-based club SV Sodingen.
History
Aft ...
. In 1978, he officially became a member of the club.
Altegoer served twice as chair of the club's economic committee – from 1980 to 1982 and again from 1990 to 1993. 1993 he succeeded
Ottokar Wüst and became the club's president, just after the club had been relegated to the
Second Bundesliga. He continued to be the club's president until 30 October 2002, when the club took on a more modern, professional structure including a professional executive board. Werner Altegoer continued to act as chair of the board until 2010.
In Altegoer's 17 years at the top of the club
VfL Bochum
Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as simply VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club has spent 35 seas ...
became a classic "
yo-yo club
A yo-yo club is a sporting side that is regularly promoted and relegated. The phrase is most typically used in association football in the United Kingdom, especially in reference to promotion to and relegation from the Premier League.
The name ...
", bouncing up and down between the
first
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
and
second Bundesliga. Bochum relegated five times, but also managed to return five times directly to the highest levels. The club's best Bundesliga spells also felt in this time as 5th-place finishes in
1997 and
2004, which earned them appearances in the
UEFA Cup tournament. In
1997, they advanced to the third round where they were put out by
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
side
Ajax Amsterdam, and in
2004, they were eliminated early through away goals (0–0 and 1–1) by
Standard CL Liège of
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
.
A priority of his presidency was the creation of modern club structures and infrastructures. The construction of the stadium center in 2003, situated next to the stadium, provided new space for changing rooms, a catering area and club offices. In economic terms Altegoer promoted a conservative policy for the financially traditionally rather troubled club and the
VfL Bochum
Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as simply VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club has spent 35 seas ...
was able to eliminate almost all its debts until the relegation at the end of the
2009–10 season.
Critique at other clubs
Altegoer was frequently cited in the German press as spokesperson of the smaller clubs in the league and criticised the unfair competition due to the financial engagement of multinationals in football clubs (
Bayer 04 Leverkusen
Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH, also known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen (), Bayer Leverkusen, or simply Leverkusen, is a professional football club based in Leverkusen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The club competes in the Bundesliga, t ...
;
VfL Wolfsburg
Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg () or Wolfsburg, is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of W ...
) and the alleged double standards towards bigger clubs regarding the financial licensing systems. When the local rivals
Borussia Dortmund
Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional fo ...
and
FC Schalke 04 had severe financial problems in 2005 he stated polemically „for me what's happening there is bankruptcy, or inability to pay; as they call it nowadays”.
Another frequent point of critic was the distribution of television revenues and Altegoer claimed that an unfair distribution of television revenues would prevent a fair competition between bigger and smaller clubs in the Bundesliga.
Criticism
In particular at the end of his
VfL chairmanship increasingly grew criticism inside the club about his supposed patriarchal and autocratic governing style. Various fan groups created an initiative to call for profound reform. In a turbulent annual general meeting of the club, on 4 October 2010, the members refused to discharge the board. This legal instrument had been created for cases in which the members feared e.g. that the advisory board had misappropriated club money. However, in this case, this tool was used to vocalize the strife among the members with Altegoer. As a consequence he decided to resign from his post, but continued his work until the appointment of his successor
Ernst-Otto Stüber in the subsequent general meeting.
Werner Altegoer election as honorary chair of the board was greeted with overwhelming applause from the members at the next annual general meeting of the club in 2011.
Death
Altegoer died on 9 January 2013 after a long disease at the age of 77 in the
Dortmunder Knappschaftskrankenhaus.
Family
Altegoer was married for more than 50 years with his wife Ursula and had two children (Kerstin and Thomas) and grandchildren.
Quotes about Werner Altegoer
* “It is not just me that says that there would not be a professional football club in Bochum today without Werner Altegoer – either in the first or the second Bundesliga.” („Nicht nur für mich steht es außerhalb jeder Frage, dass Bochum ohne den Einsatz Werner Altegoers heute keinen professionellen Fußballverein hätte – egal ob in der 1. oder 2. Liga“);
Ernst-Otto Stüber, Werner Altegeoer's successor as club president on Werner Altegoer's 70th birthday in 2005.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Altegoer, Werner
1935 births
2013 deaths
People from Bochum
VfL Bochum
German football chairmen and investors