display
Stuttgart (dpa) - CEO Thomas Hitzlsperger has again defended himself against the charge of influencing the investigations into the data affair of the Bundesliga soccer club VfB Stuttgart and influencing employees.
«This impression is completely wrong.
I am resolutely opposed to this, "said Hitzlsperger of the German Press Agency on Sunday:" We have informed all employees to be interviewed in writing that we fully support the audit. "
Most recently, the "Spiegel" referred to confidential papers of the Esecon law firm in the data affair and reported that the AG board of directors and the association's executive committee are said to have had a "lasting" influence.
The news magazine had referred to the Esecon report and reported that Hitzlsperger should have informed VfB employees that they could refuse to be questioned by the investigators.
Hitzlsperger now stated that after internal legal clarification, the employees had been "released from their duty of confidentiality under labor law".
At the same time, they had been advised that "the decision to participate in the audit ultimately rests with everyone."
display
The data affair has been a burden for the traditional club for months and is a central issue in the power struggle.
Between 2016 and 2018, the VfB is said to have repeatedly passed on tens of thousands of member data to third parties - among other things, to promote the outsourcing of the professional department that was decided in summer 2017.
Hitzlsperger also defended himself against the accusation that an independent processing at VfB was “not guaranteed” because there were people in the association's bodies who were “directly connected to the processes to be investigated”, as it was said.
"The opposite is true: we even made great progress with the investigation," said the former international.
In addition to Esecon, the state commissioner for data protection determined that the authority had called the violations “significant”.
The Esecon report was handed over to a law firm for an expert opinion, said Hitzlsperger: "And since I want to prevent data protection violations at VfB in the future, we have already brought an external data protection officer from an IT company on board."
display
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210207-99-341035 / 2
VfB Stuttgart squad
Bundesliga table
display
Structure of the VfB Stuttgart
Message from the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information