Bundesliga: DFL CEO Christian Seifert will not seek a new term in 2022

DFL CEO Christian Seifert released a personal statement today indicating that he would not seek a new term in office when his current contract ends in June 2022. That means that the supervisory board of the DFL will have ample time to designate a potential successor.

Seifert said, “These are challenging times that demand that we provide for clarify and dependability. That is true for the DFL as a whole and also for my own professional ambitions. Hence I have informed Mr. Peter Peters as president of the supervisory board taht I will leave the DFL at the conclusion of my contract in June 2022.”

“This decision is important already now so that the board has the ability early to take this fact into consideration in its deliberations about the future organization of the DFL,” Seifert said.

Board president Peter Peters responded in a statement that “Christian Seifert has done outstanding work for over 15 years and contributed significantly to the success of the Bundesliga and the 2.Bundesliga.” The DFL board will launch a search for a replacement without the pressure of an imminent deadline, he stated.

One potential candidate could be BVB CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke. Watzke said (sportbuzzer.de) that Seifert’s departure “will be a great loss for the Bundesliga. I can speak of his work only with the highest respect.”

Watzke added, “German professional soccer must now find a suitable successor. Finding an exact replacement for a man like Christian Seifer, who worked for soccer at such a high level for so long, however, is a difficult business.” Watzke’s own contract with Dortmund ends in 2022. Time will tell, however, who the DFL board considers.