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Things came full circle for Max Paatz on Wednesday evening. The new general manager of Rhein Fire already worked for the NFL Europe version of the franchise at the beginning of the millennium. His first appointment back then: a talk with the fans in the “Knoten” in Düsseldorf’s old town. On Wednesday he sat in the pub again and answered questions from his supporters.

Paatz made one thing clear straight away: his arrival should bring continuity to the position of general manager. It is already the third in the third year since Rhein Fire joined the European League of Football (ELF). “I’m here to stay, that’s my plan, and I think the owners see it that way too,” explained Paatz. “I’m looking forward to being able to shape the next few years together with the fans.”

An important task will be to get even more fans into the stadium for the games. There weren’t quite 10,000 on average last season, so people had hoped for more. At the Hamburg Sea Devils, where Paatz was employed until the end of September, the average was lower, but this can also be explained by the difficult stadium situation. With the one game in the Volksparkstadion he proved that he can fill an arena: 32,500 fans were there for the duel with Rhein Fire.

Paatz wants to break this ELF record when Fire plays at least individual games in Düsseldorf in 2025 and 2026. “That is the goal that I want to achieve with you and the city of Düsseldorf: that we get 35,000 plus x spectators here,” explained the new GM confidently. The city has recently become more active on the issue of the Rhine Fire. There are “many positive signals from the city, not only when it comes to the stadium, but also that they want to support us in various activities, especially when it comes to the visibility of Rhein Fire as a Düsseldorf team.” Paatz is also aware of one thing: “In the future, the team will come back to Düsseldorf.” But of course, this requires a constantly larger audience.

Fire itself also wants to contribute to the topic of visibility in Düsseldorf. They are currently looking for office space in the city, and completion should be reported in the next few weeks. According to Paatz, a fan and ticket shop is also planned there, which caused applause among the fans in the “Knoten”.

Another topic was the cooperation of all Düsseldorf football teams. “My goal is to promote football in Düsseldorf,” said Paatz, including all teams from the state capital. During his three years in Hamburg, he always maintained good contacts with the clubs in the area; that was important to him. “Düsseldorf is the football city of Europe. For me, this is the perfect basis to say: Together we can achieve really great things here.”

2023-10-22 08:36:08
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