From powerful to isolated investor in 365 days: the rise and fall of FCL patron Alpstaeg

Just a year ago, Alpstaeg was the strong man. He wanted to drive the entire leadership into the desert overnight and deploy his own people. Including his daughter Giulia (31), who has a university degree in communications. It was said that she would one day become president of the club. The well-known player agent Giacomo Petralito (74) should also be given a place in the FCL construction. But Alpstaeg’s plan was foiled at the finish.

For the 78-year-old investor, it was a slap in the face that hurt his pride more than anything in his life. No wonder. After all, Alpstaeg is used to successes in his professional career, not defeats.

Swisspor success story

He laid the foundation for his career in 1971. Together with his brother Georges, he founded the Swisspor company at the age of 25. They started with 14 employees. The SME has now grown into a leading company in the insulation and sealing of buildings, with more than 4,000 employees. A success story that would not have been possible without the virtue and hard work of Alpstaeg.

Alpstaeg’s style is well received in the construction industry. Where the notes are rough, you need someone to tell you where to go, pick everyone up and stretch your elbows when necessary. He also knows how to please and position himself accordingly. He can do that like no other. Even today he still tries to get among the employees as often as possible to feel them.

The bottom line is that he has always seen himself as a patron. He explained to the NZZ how he came to work at FCL. “All company managers opposed the submission by a ratio of 6:1. They said to me, ‘Are you crazy?’ I replied, ‘It is so now. It costs 10 boxes, 10 million.› (…) I wouldn’t have gotten through it in a normal management position. But that was the patron’s decision.”

Ended up in football through Giulia

The fact that Alpstaeg started playing football in the first place is thanks to his only child. «Giulia was already an FCL fan as a child. We had a lot of fights at breakfast because she went to soccer without doing her homework. But then I noticed how good it was for her to interact with the fan scene,” he told Blick a year ago.

When then FCL president Walter Stierli asked him in 2008 to participate in the construction of the new football stadium, Alpstaeg was convinced. Football opened his horizons and made him younger. At first he was only disappointed with the financial aspect. “I thought there was more to it business-wise.”

Unlike in the construction industry, Alpstaeg has never been easy to understand in football. During his time as an FCL shareholder, he has stated several times that he knows little about the sport. Over the years, the impression has arisen that he acts accordingly depending on the person he is close to at the time. Because Alpstaeg has never cut back on criticism. It wasn’t always about the business for him. Mostly he aimed at the man.

The promise of Alpstaeg

The surprise in Central Switzerland was even greater when Alpstaeg agreed in 2021 to remain out of the public eye from now on as part of the settlement of the first major shareholder dispute in Lucerne. He assured this not only at a press conference, but also in writing to the then renegade shareholders Samih Sawiris, Hans Schmid and Marco Sieber.

As Schmid recently said, he warned the only remaining co-shareholder Josef Bieri (66) that Alpstaeg would not keep this promise. He should be right. Some say it is Alpstaeg’s right to complain. After all, he owns the majority of the club. Others, on the other hand, do not understand his behavior, also because he no longer played an operational role.

Completely different backgrounds

Bieri belongs to the second group. The fact that these two investors cannot smell each other probably has to do with the completely different fields in which they sought their fortune. Alpstaeg in the construction sector, Bieri in the financial sector.

Alpstaeg once described the stock market as “crazy stuff,” and the managers were the worst: “They’re crooks who only look out for their own benefits!” Finding a common denominator in these statements does not actually seem easy. But the two have at least one thing in common: they fight for the FCL until the end.