By Mark Baber
January 23 – Billionaire fan of Hambrg SV, Klaus-Michael Kühne, has become an official investor in the Bundesliga club, converting his latest loan of €18.75 million ($21.8million) into a 7.5% stake and buying the naming rights for the club’s stadium which will revert to its old name of the ‘Volksparkstadion’ (People’s Park Stadium) in July 2015.
Kühne is executive chairman and majority owner of the international transport company Kühne + Nagel and has a net worth is $10.3 billion, according to Forbes.
The name Volksparkstadion dates back to 1953 when a stadium was built from the ruins of what remained of Hamburg after the devastating RAF raids of July 1943 which killed over 40,000 people and destroyed whole districts of the city.
HSV moved into the stadium in 1963 when the Bundesliga was set up, but in 2001 the stadium was renamed the AOL Arena as AOL bought the naming rights for €15.3 million. In 2007 the stadium became the HSH Nordbank Arena in a 6 year €25 million deal and in 2010 it took on its current name of the Imtech Arena.
Hamburg chairman Dietmar Beiersdorfer said: “We are delighted that we now have a strategic partner in Mr. Kühne, who is a true HSV man and supporter. I am especially pleased that Mr. Kühne allows us to play in the Volksparkstadion again.”
Kühne himself said: “It was a matter of the heart for me that the home of HSV carries its initial name again. I wish that our team can return to the success of the past in the Volksparkstadion.”
From this summer HSV’s stadium will be joining just two other Bundesliga stadiums without sponsored names – Werder Bremen’s Weserstadion and Hertha Berlin’s Olympic stadium.
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