Dr. Michael Kölmel: and they are still paying… Fortuna Düsseldorf are still suffering from the financial misery of the 1990s and early 2000s. Even after promotion to the Bundesliga in 2018, the club still had to pass on a hefty share of its TV money to Michael Kölmel of Kinowelt.
Fifteen percent of the television revenues earned in the top flight had to be transferred to him. The origin of the agreement dates back to 1999. Fortuna were playing in the Regionalliga West-Südwest, a collecting basin for bankrupt former Bundesliga clubs. They signed a marketing contract with the owner of Sportwelt.
It was not a good deal. The club received an immediate 7.4 million euro loan; in return, Kölmel – who had already been convicted in 2002 for delaying insolvency proceedings – has, since 2008, received that money back plus 15 percent of all TV income. Fortuna later tried to annul the contract in court.
Their only success came in April 2013, when a special repayment reduced the burden to “only” half of what it might have been. But according to SPORT BILD, Kölmel, “Mr. Fifteen Percent”, was still collecting from Fortuna’s TV revenues through 2023 unless another special cut intervened.
In 2018 alone, after promotion, he pocketed 3.7 million euros.