Oliver Bierhoff is the new project manager of the DFB Academy. His calendar is now even fuller when this job is combined with his role as sporting director of Die Mannschaft. However the academy project has been close to his heart for some years now. He imagines the new centre as a sort of storehouse of knowledge and think tank for football. But also as a meeting place, as he outlines in an interview with DFB.de.
DFB.de: Mr Bierhoff, after the referendum in Frankfurt on 21st June, it has now been decided that the DFB Academy will be built.
Oliver Bierhoff: Like everyone at the DFB, I am very happy with the decision that the people of Frankfurt have made. Congratulations for this go firstly to DFB general secretary Helmut Sandrock and DFB’s director of media Ralf Köttker and their teams. The communications strategy was intelligent, well-balanced and meaningful. As project manager, Helmut Sandrock dealt with many uncomfortable discussions and argued successfully for the DFB Academy with great enthusiasm and factual argumentation.
DFB.de: You have occasionally been named as architect of the Academy. Can you get used to that?
Bierhoff: The whole DFB is the architect of the Academy. I gave an impulse, but this project can only be achieved because there is a spirited leadership which has recognised the meaningfulness and the large additional value of the project. In the whole process of the DFB Academy’s development, it was never about one person. For me the point was never to do my own thing. My impression is that all workers at the DFB, irrelevant of level, are fully behind this project.
DFB.de: How did you become convinced that football in Germany needs a central performance centre?
Bierhoff: I’m constantly contemplating how we can further develop football and so guarantee success for the DFB. We’ve long known at the DFB that this knowledge has been part of many individual silos within the DFB and also shared throughout Germany. It is unavoidable that there are losses in the communication between the islands of knowledge. And it was always clear that we can create tremendous synergies when we merge this knowledge – with greater additional knowledge for the whole of German football, and grassroots football in particular. It was often put to me from external sides that I want to create an exclusive place for the national team with the DFB Academy.
DFB.de: And that’s not true.
Oliver Bierhoff is the new project manager of the DFB Academy. His calendar is now even fuller when this job is combined with his role as sporting director of Die Mannschaft. However the academy project has been close to his heart for some years now. He imagines the new centre as a sort of storehouse of knowledge and think tank for football. But also as a meeting place, as he outlines in an interview with DFB.de.
DFB.de: Mr Bierhoff, after the referendum in Frankfurt on 21st June, it has now been decided that the DFB Academy will be built.
Oliver Bierhoff: Like everyone at the DFB, I am very happy with the decision that the people of Frankfurt have made. Congratulations for this go firstly to DFB general secretary Helmut Sandrock and DFB’s director of media Ralf Köttker and their teams. The communications strategy was intelligent, well-balanced and meaningful. As project manager, Helmut Sandrock dealt with many uncomfortable discussions and argued successfully for the DFB Academy with great enthusiasm and factual argumentation.
DFB.de: You have occasionally been named as architect of the Academy. Can you get used to that?
Bierhoff: The whole DFB is the architect of the Academy. I gave an impulse, but this project can only be achieved because there is a spirited leadership which has recognised the meaningfulness and the large additional value of the project. In the whole process of the DFB Academy’s development, it was never about one person. For me the point was never to do my own thing. My impression is that all workers at the DFB, irrelevant of level, are fully behind this project.
DFB.de: How did you become convinced that football in Germany needs a central performance centre?
Bierhoff: I’m constantly contemplating how we can further develop football and so guarantee success for the DFB. We’ve long known at the DFB that this knowledge has been part of many individual silos within the DFB and also shared throughout Germany. It is unavoidable that there are losses in the communication between the islands of knowledge. And it was always clear that we can create tremendous synergies when we merge this knowledge – with greater additional knowledge for the whole of German football, and grassroots football in particular. It was often put to me from external sides that I want to create an exclusive place for the national team with the DFB Academy.
DFB.de: And that’s not true.
Bierhoff: In the course of the process it became more and more clear that the senior national team would profit from the Academy. The DFB Academy will ensure that the best footballers in Germany are being better and better trained. And that begins at grassroots level. The sequence of effects reacts the other way round. The knowledge, that we will initially win with the DFB Academy, will spread across our state associations, clubs and bases as multipliers.
DFB.de: The model for the new academy has already been imagined. What is your impression?
Bierhoff: The building is very harmonious, very friendly, it combines everything under one roof. The design exudes openness, friendliness – of all the notable designs, the model by “kadawittfeld” was my favourite. The architect was 100 per cent successful in representing the DFB and the DFB Academy and emphasising what meaning football has for the entire project.
DFB.de: How long will it take for the investment to pay off in sporting success?
Bierhoff: In the public debate on the issues, I did not have to look at the positive effect, including financial. Through the Academy we will regenerate a lot of revenue and further improve the image of the association. I have already registered in talks with sponsors and the media how much the DFB Academy can change the perception of the association. We will also develop non-cash innovations around the Academy. And that will all happen regardless of the biggest and financial additional value of the Academy: the improved training of coaches and players will see improved German football. And that is where our director of football Hansi Flick is in charge, with him being responsible for the conceptual focus of the Academy. And with the attractiveness of the product, the chance also increases of leading the commercialisation of football at the DFB into a new dimension. I am convinced that the Academy is an advantageous investment in many respects.
DFB.de: How detailed are your visions of what will happen within the Academy?
Bierhoff: A lot of the basic information has already been communicated. The training of football coaches will come from Frankfurt, and the national team will be able to work under optimal conditions with their coaches at the Academy. I view both of these as basics because we posses great experience in both areas and they are already running well. But we will also have to put in new basics here. For me the most exciting element is “research and development” – there is a lot of potential and imagination there. The most important task for my team and me in the coming months will be to further define this area.
DFB.de: The word “Academy” sounds like research, science and university. Will the Academy have a strong inclination towards the area of research and development?
Bierhoff: We don’t want to pursue science for the sake of science. We won’t do research just to be able to tell everyone how well we do research. For us it is about developing thoughts and innovations for football and footballers, as well as being a point of service for clubs.
DFB.de: Can you give an example of that?
Bierhoff: We’ll be looking at new technologies, at boots, balls and training methods. “Big data” will also play an important role for us in the whole analysis. I believe that we can achieve a lot here; that we must achieve a lot. And I believe that this is our task. There are already a lot of institutes, a lot of small companies, who are involved in the field of innovation. With the DFB Academy we have a superior facility which asks intelligent questions, researches with partners and brings together knowledge for the entire football family.
DFB.de: What are you looking forward to most when you receive your office at the Academy at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019?
Bierhoff: I want there to be a special atmosphere throughout the Academy. I want to see our legal advisors in conversation with our scouts over a cup of coffee. I want to look out over a training pitch from the cafeteria and see the DFB director of football in conversation with an U15 player from an international guest. I want to see a fitness expert in chatting with an U19 player just a few metres away. I want at the same time that a group of prospective football coaches are testing the new 2-7-1 formation, which they’ve just been taught in a lesson, with local youth players; that DFB workers are stood on the edge of the pitches and are watching the work out on the pitch during their break. My vision is that the different departments, not just sporting ones, amalgamate together. If we can achieve that, then it means we’ve done a lot of things right.
DFB.de: And then it won’t be long before football in Germany can regularly celebrate success.
Bierhoff: You can’t guarantee titles, but we can improve the conditions and increase the probability. In 2000 we took the first measures when we undertook great efforts with the league and the clubs. 14 years passed between that and the win in Rio. But the first glimpses of the positive results could be seen with the European U19 title in 2009. I refuse to accept that the effect of the Academy will only be on titles for the senior team.
DFB.de: What other effects do you promise then?
Bierhoff: You can already feel the first positive effect. We are getting a new home for the DFB – and I am unbelievably motivated to go down this road with the entire association. Not only coaches, not only sportsmen, but the entire DFB. This Academy will change the workplace for all DFB workers. And that’s for many big and small reasons, one of them being because the workers will walk past football pitches on their way to work from the car parl. They will always be able to see what they are working for – and that is for football. There can barely be anything nicer. I am sure that the Academy will give the entire association a boost.
