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MUNICH

Audi buys stake in FC Bayern Munich

Audi has all but completed negotiations with FC Bayern Munich to buy a 9.5 percent stake in the football club, according to a report in the online version of Stern magazine.

Published: 31 October 2009 11:16 CET
Audi buys stake in FC Bayern Munich
Audi has nearly 10 percent Photo:DPA

The move should pour around €80 million into the club’s coffers, and has already been approved by the boards of both firms. All that remains is for the deal to be signed – and this should take place in the next few days, the magazine says.

This would not only further improve the finances of the football champs, it would also further bind Audi to Germany’s most successful soccer club.

And side deals between Audi and FC Bayer’s other sponsors such as Adidas or Telekom.

The magazine also suggests that Audi’s owner Volkswagen would get a further seat on the FC Bayern board. Martin Winterkorn already sits on the club’s board, and could be joined by Audi head Rupert Stadler.

Bayern is currently ranked fifth in the Bundesliga, behind Bayer Leverkusen, Hamburg, Werder Bremen and Schalke 04. Bayern is scheduled to play VfB Stuttgart on Saturday afternoon.

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MUNICH

Four injured as WWII bomb explodes near Munich train station

Four people were injured, one of them seriously, when a World War II bomb exploded at a building site near Munich's main train station on Wednesday, emergency services said.

Published: 1 December 2021 16:41 CET
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich.
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Privat

Construction workers had been drilling into the ground when the bomb exploded, a spokesman for the fire department said in a statement.

The blast was heard several kilometres away and scattered debris hundreds of metres, according to local media reports.

Images showed a plume of smoke rising directly next to the train tracks.

Bavaria interior minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild that the whole area was being searched.

Deutsche Bahn suspended its services on the affected lines in the afternoon.

Although trains started up again from 3pm, the rail operator said there would still be delays and cancellations to long-distance and local travel in the Munich area until evening. 

According to the fire service, the explosion happened near a bridge that must be passed by all trains travelling to or from the station.

The exact cause of the explosion is unclear, police said. So far, there are no indications of a criminal act.

WWII bombs are common in Germany

Some 75 years after the war, Germany remains littered with unexploded ordnance, often uncovered during construction work.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about WWII bomb disposals in Germany

However, most bombs are defused by experts before they explode.

Last year, seven World War II bombs were found on the future location of Tesla’s first European factory, just outside Berlin.

Sizeable bombs were also defused in Cologne and Dortmund last year.

In 2017, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in Frankfurt prompted the evacuation of 65,000 people — the largest such operation since the end of the war in Europe in 1945.

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