Decisive is what happens at the airport: even ten years later Hans-Joachim Watzke still feels uneasy when he thinks back to March 14, 2005, the second birthday of Borussia Dortmund. It was unbelievable, an extreme situation, he said of the decisive meeting at Duesseldorf Airport. After a long struggle, the main owners of the Westfalenstadion approved the rescue plan for the financially stricken club, allowing the looming insolvency of the giant of the game to be averted at the last possible moment.\n\nWatzke still remembers the six-hour session in an event hall at the airport, followed anxiously by supporters on television.
The first four hours were very negative. Some BVB sympathizers in the room had tears in their eyes.\n\nThey thought this was the end. Only a month earlier the club had officially announced an existential threat to earnings and liquidity.
When manager Michael Meier was asked at a press conference whether BVB were still liquid, he passed the question to auditor Jochen Roelfs, whose answer shook the Bundesliga: if the creditors rejected the restructuring plan, that would be it. The horror balance sheet that followed exceeded even the worst fears. It suddenly became clear how badly Niebaum and Meier had maneuvered the club into trouble through sheer megalomania.
Almost 80 percent of the 179.5 million euros invested by shareholders had been burned up in losses, and the club expected a yearly loss of around 68 million euros. A day later the creditors accepted an initial compromise, but approval from the 5,800 investors in the Molsiris real-estate fund was still missing. Two years earlier the club had sold 94 percent of its stadium to that fund and leased it back for 16 million euros a year, turning the stadium into a money pit.
The rescue plan involved buying back part of the stadium and deferring rent payments for 2005 and 2006 by opening up access to a securities deposit of almost 52 million euros that had originally been earmarked for a full reacquisition in 2017. The plan worked. In sporting terms the crucial appointment in those lean years would be a coach who breathed new life into the leaking giant from the Ruhr: on July 1, 2008, Juergen Klopp took over from Thomas Doll. After fourth place in 2009/10, Kloppo led BVB to the German title in 2011, the first double in club history in 2012, and the Champions League final in 2013.