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BAYERN MUNICH

Hoeneß: Bayern saved Dortmund with €2 mln

With Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich battling it out for top spot in the German league title race, Bayern's Uli Hoeneß has revealed they loaned Dortmund €2 million to help save their rivals from bankruptcy.

Published: 7 February 2012 11:35 CET
Hoeneß: Bayern saved Dortmund with €2 mln
Photo: DPA

The payment by Bayern was made and repaid in 2003 after heavy investment by the Dortmund board had put the club into dire financial straits and the loan was accepted by then president Gerd Niebaum and manager Michael Meier.

In March 2005, the club was again in financial trouble and on the verge of bankruptcy as they only just managed to avoid insolvency, but corrected their cash situation enough to become German champions last season.

“When they couldn’t pay up anymore, sometimes even for salaries, we gave them an unsecured loan for a few months,” revealed Bayern president Hoeneß. “I’m a big fan of tradition in sport and I don’t think that was a bad thing to do.”

Dortmund’s chief executive officer Hans-Joachim Watzke has confirmed the Bayern loan to regional newspaper the Ruhr Nachrichten.

Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes has said he does not believe Hoeneß’ comments are planned to unsettle their Dortmund rivals who are top of the league on 43 points with Bayern in second place on 41 points and level with Schalke 04.

“I do not see this as calculated,” said Heynckes on Monday at a press conference.

“It was a good few years ago and I think it is a positive thing there is some solidarity in the league.”

Dortmund have since turned their finances around and managed to sign Borussia Mönchengladbach’s rising star Marco Reus for €17.5 million to play for them next season, having seen off competition from Bayern.

AFP/mry

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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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