Gerd Niebaum - The megalomaniac: he led Borussia Dortmund to triumph and to the brink of bankruptcy. Under Niebaum the club won the 1989 DFB Cup, league titles in 1995, 1996 and 2002, the Champions League in 1997 and the Intercontinental Cup the same year. He wanted to push Bayern Munich into the shadows.\n\nHe achieved a great deal, but lost all sense of proportion.
For the Champions League banquet he flew his favorite band to Munich. He invested in a giant stadium, paid enormous salaries, took Dortmund public and initially earned handsomely from it.\n\nEmployees mockingly began to call him Doctor God because he had transformed Borussia into the BVB corporation, meddling in everything and apparently living in his own world. When the bubble burst and his mismanagement became visible, Dortmund were facing a nine-figure deficit.
At one of the most turbulent annual meetings in club history, supporters accused him bluntly of having destroyed the club.\n\nOnly the new leadership around Rauball and Watzke was able to prevent insolvency after Niebaum finally gave up his last post in 2005. His fall was as deep as his rise had been. He lost court cases over the rent on his huge law offices, had to keep paying until the contract expired, and later lost his license to practice law because of financial collapse. Serious accusations followed in later court proceedings, including embezzlement and forged signatures.
Since then he has rarely been seen again at Signal Iduna Park. There was no grand farewell for the president who first led Dortmund to heaven and then to hell.
