Axel Hellmann is only one half of the new dual leadership in the management of the German Football League (DFL), in which the 18 Bundesliga and 18 second division clubs are united.
But the 51-year-old Frankfurt lawyer has so much more natural presence and charisma than his partner Oliver Leki that over the next few months he will become the face of German professional league football, which DFL Managing Director Christian Seifert was for 17 years.
His successor Donata Hopfen did not succeed.
That is why the board of the league suggested that she leave after eleven months, and she complied with the request without resistance.
Like Seifert, hops were socialized outside of the football industry. Now the Bundesliga insiders Hellmann (Eintracht Frankfurt) and Leki (SC Freiburg) are to tackle the urgent issues of the DFL on an interim basis until July 1, 2023 and bring them to a conclusion as quickly as possible .
The key points are the search for investors for the DFL, the revision of the 50plus1 investor regulation for the Bundesliga clubs, which has been warned by the Cartel Office, and the expansion of foreign marketing, which is lagging behind the other European leagues.
Hellmann is believed to be capable of quickly mastering the complex tasks because, as a member of the Board of Eintracht Frankfurt AG, he has transformed the sportingly ailing, structurally ossified traditional Hessian club into a modern football company with Champions League ambitions within just a few years, which proactively plans the transformations into the future and very successful.
Hellmann did not do this alone.
But the lawyer, who began his work for Eintracht more than 20 years ago as a co-founder of the fan and funding department, was and is something like the head of the club management, who significantly developed the identity and philosophy of the club, for the social Responsibility and social relevance are important building blocks.
Hellmann, who repeatedly mentioned the office of Frankfurt mayor as a future goal, has always looked beyond the box of Eintracht and football.
Neither economic nor political questions overwhelm the rhetorician.
He already represents his club on several committees of national and international football associations.
He has made a name for himself as a warning voice for the middle class against the Midas fantasies of the super-rich clubs.
If Hellmann acts with the fortune he had at Eintracht in the next six months, he will become the new strong man in German league football.