Bernhard Burgener resigns as president of the FCB

Bernhard Burgener resigns as president of FC Basel. The 63-year-old will not run for another term at the November 9 Annual General Meeting.

Burgener announced this in an interview on the club’s home page www.fcb.ch. “This is just a logical step to propose and elect an independent board of directors, as we predicted, after discussions with members,” Burgener said. “With the bylaws amended in consultation with the members, we have now created the conditions for this – that was a step that should have happened a long time ago.”

Burgener has been the main shareholder of FC Basel Holding AG since the summer of 2017 and is therefore also the de facto owner of the FC Basel club. He owns 80.6 percent of the share capital and is still the strong man of the club. “I have emphasized several times that in such a situation, with all the sporting and economic challenges ahead, I will certainly not disappoint the FCB and simply give up,” he says.

Strong wind against the fans

Since taking office just over three years ago, the 63-year-old was not only president of the AG’s board of directors, but also president of the association.

More recently, critical voices against him have grown enormously in Basel. From a sporting point of view, the club has not been the desired one since Burgener took office with positions 2, 2 and 3 in the Super League. FCB was replaced by the Young Boys as the industry leader and in the last three years it has only delighted its fans with a victory in the cup (2019) and qualification for the quarterfinals of the Europa League (2020).

Above all, however, the fans and the population struggled with the club’s leadership (for example with participation in a club in India), with the communication mishaps of recent months or with the departure or demotion of FCB club icons like Marco Streller, Alex Frei, Massimo Ceccaroni and Ruedi Zbinden. All of this has led to an anti-Burgener mood and the “Yystoo for e FCB” movement in recent weeks.

Disclaimer not in response to “Ystoo for e FCB”

His decision to stop running for association president was not a reaction to public criticism. “We started this process more than a year ago on the occasion of the last general meeting,” says Burgener. CEO Roland Heri and his team reviewed the bylaws for several months in close cooperation with various members and fan groups at various workshops. “Fortunately, we were able to find a good match.”

He is satisfied with how the situation around FC Basel is developing, says the outgoing president: “We want to work for a more independent club and we are very open to broader support and an even more active club. I think we are on the right track and we see this development above all as an opportunity. “