Impending sell-out? Biel sports director Steinegger complains: ‘Financially we can no longer keep up’

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The 2-1 win on Tuesday after extra time against leader Friborg was a relief. “Every point we can get before the Nati break is important. I hope that we can then attack fully again,” says Biel’s sports director Martin Steinegger (51). However, the play-off finalists still have problems for the time being. There are still many injuries and the awkward position at the table (12th place). But also the threat of a sell-out with 17 expiring contracts, top performers wanting to leave and a lot of uncertainty about what the team will look like in the future. Steinegger comments on several points.

“If you are realistic and think about what average points we should achieve from now on, it will be brutally difficult. We have to be that honest.”

“There are also seven foreigners among them and I find that less of a problem because the market there is much larger. But of course there will be changes. In principle that is not a problem. There will be no wave of contract extensions in the coming days. This season we played harbor cheese together for a long time. Then we need to look closely and identify the right players. I currently estimate that between 30 and 50 percent of players whose contracts expire will stay.”

«Kessler and Künzle are two good examples. They came to us because they had a small role at their previous clubs. They have grown with us due to our successes in recent years. As a result, other clubs have become more interested and we have now reached a point where we can no longer sustain ourselves financially. Now we just have to find the next people who want to walk the path with us. I don’t know how this is perceived from the outside, but we are far from a club that can pay the highest wages. That’s a fact.”

“So far nothing has been signed. But he likes it and we are very happy with him. So it is still a matter of negotiation.”

“We may well come to the conclusion that we will have to work with a relatively young team next season. And rebuild something, so that it will take two to three years before we can attack at the front again. The biggest challenge will be finding the right players. In recent years, players have occasionally fallen through the cracks at a major club. There are also opportunities that we would like to be involved in.”

“I’m not that stressed and I’m confident that things will end well for us. Still, there were times when I worried. But in recent weeks I have become more confident that we will have a competitive team next season, even if we may have to scale back our ambitions for a while. This is the path we must follow; there is no other option.”

Source : Blick