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Update: The New Corporate Governance Ranking of the Football Bundesliga — Detailed Study Now Available

Dortmund Still at the Top — Hoffenheim, Bremen, Mainz and Leverkusen Improved Significantly — Wolfsburg Less Strong

For the second time in a row Prof. Dr. Stefan Prigge (HSBA Hamburg School of Business Administration) jointly with Dr. Alexander Juschus (Governance & Values GmbH) and HSBA alumnus Ralf Leister (Blog FussballWirtschaft.de) has explored the corporate governance of the members of the Bundesliga. Based on 83 criteria covering areas like management and governance boards, remuneration as well as transparency and disclosure, they compiled a sound ranking. As of now the detailed second evaluation, discussing several further relevant aspects, is available. The focus of the second evaluation and ranking has been to describe the changes in the quality of corporate governance since the first evaluation in 2016 regarding overall standard and revealing prominent variations.

Overall results (Compared to the results of the first evaluation in 2016):

  • Borussia Dortmund secured its top position. Bayern München ranks only at position three, on a par with the HSV.
  • TSG 1899 Hoffenheim has improved significantly regarding management and governance boards as well as transparency and disclosure.
  • Werder Bremen and Bayer Leverkusen also showed remarkable progress in their corporate governance whereas the VfL Wolfsburg has decreased its overall standard.  
Oliver Tjaden
Annotation: *The data of VfB Stuttgart for 2017/18 are not to be compared with other data because in 2017 the VfB outsourced its professional football division to a public holding. Our data is partly based on the last closed annual business reports. For the public holding of the VfB the annual report was not available therefore the data is slightly skewed. RB Leipzig and SC Freiburg were not part of the evaluation in 2016.
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