Wednesday, July 21 will go down as one of the most notable days in the recent history of Dunfermline Athletic.
With DAFC Fussball GmbH’s purchase of a 75.1 per cent holding in the East End Park club, Thomas Meggle, Damir Keretic, Nick Teller and Dr Albrecht Gundermann became the SPFL’s newest owners.
The quartet bring fresh capital, lofty aspirations and a fine pedigree in sport and business to Fife.
Here, Courier Sport gives an introduction to the money men at Dunfermline.
Thomas Meggle
Meggle, 46, brings a wealth of footballing expertise to the boardroom.
Although born in Munich, his career highs were enjoyed in Hamburg with counter-culture powerhouse, St Pauli, making more than 150 appearances over three spells with the club.
He would go on to serve Kiezkicker as coach, assistant, caretaker boss and director of football.
However, it would be doing Meggle a disservice to focus purely on his roles within the game, given he initially intended to study psychology prior to embarking on a career in sport.
He is also a respected, adept business figure in his own right and came to the attention of Keretic, Teller and Gundermann when he — Dragon’s Den-style — pitched the idea of a consulting operation to aid struggling owners of football clubs.
That, instead evolved into the men pursuing their own purchase.
Damir Keretic
Ex-tennis professional Keretic, 61, is modest regarding his own achievements in sport but can still boast that he represented Germany in the Davis Cup and reached the third round of Wimbledon four times.
He crossed rackets with the likes of Bjorn Borg and Ivan Lendl.
Born in Zagreb, he was also an exceptional Ice Hockey player as a younger man and could have chosen to pursue that path.
Keretic proved similarly proficient in the world of business, serving as managing director of IMG Germany — a global giant of sports talent management, for whom he worked with Martina Hingis — and also ran his own marketing company.
Nick Teller
Teller, 61, is the sharpest financial mind in among DAFC Fussball GmbH and will be charged with making the numbers add up as Dunfermline seek to create a sustainable, successful operation.
Teller joined Commerzbank — Germany’s second largest bank — as a trainee in 1982 and, after several management positions in Germany and abroad, was appointed as a member of the board of managing directors in 2003.
He was most recently part of the company’s supervisory board but stepped down in 2020.
Dr Albrecht Gundermann
Gundermann, who possesses a degree in law, is managing director of Portugal-based shipping firm European Mar GmbH and a board member for the European International Shipowners Association of Portugal.
Like Teller, he has previously worked for Commerzbank.
Unlike Meggle, Keretic and Teller, Gundermann will not join the Pars board of directors and even when travel is permitted, his input is likely to be from afar.
Dunfermline take inspiration from St Pauli as new German owners outline vision for the Pars
