Nine years ago, FC Biel went bankrupt and started anew in regional football. Now the Seelanders, who play the Cup quarter-final against Lugano on Wednesday, are knocking on the door of professional football.
26.02.2025, 04:30
28.05.2025, 21:55
SDA
"Anything is possible in the theater" was the headline in the "Bieler Tagblatt" on 26 February 2016, but anyone reading the lines below quickly realizes that it's not about culture. No, the topic is FC Biel - practically non-stop these days. The latest news: Patrick Rahmen has resigned. The then 46-year-old Basel native is giving up his coaching job with the Seelanders to become Markus Babbel's assistant at FC Lucerne. Commenting on his departure, he says: "Everything has its limits when you have a family to support."
Dietmar Faes remembers those days well. At the time, he was president of "Future Corner", a patrons' association for FC Biel's young players. He was concerned to see the increasing number of negative headlines about the club. "Somewhere it was said that the sponsors were turning their backs on the club and were partly responsible for the problems," recalls the 62-year-old. He doesn't want to take this lying down and contacts other sponsors. At a meeting in a cigar lounge, they came to the conclusion that things could not go on like this.
As the head of the "Biel Group", Faes then approached the majority shareholder and president of the club at the time. He wanted to find out with a reorganizer whether the club could still be saved. Faes says that he only received the requested documents late, and then it wasn't even the latest figures. At that moment, he knows: That's it, FC Biel is going bankrupt on its 120th anniversary.
Accusations and empty promises
A look back at the early summer of 2015: just as the beautiful new stadium, the Tissot Arena, is ready for occupation, FC Biel is relegated from the Challenge League. However, the bottom-placed team from Seeland is lucky that Servette, which is heavily in debt, has its eligibility to play revoked. The Geneva club is relegated to the Promotion League, while Biel remains in the second division.
Shortly afterwards, a new majority shareholder is introduced: a Zurich lawyer named Karl "Carlo" Häfeli. He has experience as a member of the Grasshoppers board of directors and even has a family connection to the region. Everything seems serious. People are cautious after the football club in Neuchâtel, a good 30 kilometers away, recently went bankrupt under the Chechen owner Bulat Chagayev. "Let's just look to the future and make a fresh start in this unique arena," says Häfeli.
What he means by "new beginning" is particularly evident in the squad structure, in which Häfeli is involved. On September 1, the club will present its 21st addition, including players such as Antonino Marchesano, Benjamin Kololli and Mirlind Kryeziu. Halfway through the first half of the season, Biel is in second place, its sporting success distracting from the financial problems that soon arise. But at some point it leaks out that players and coaches are waiting for their wages. This is followed by departures, accusations and empty promises. The "drama" ends with the newly hired coach from Croatia attacking the team's own masseur during a match. A few days later, in April 2016, the league revoked FC Biel's license.
A fresh start and a lack of material
When it came to reorganizing the club, Dietmar Faes seemed to be the right candidate. After all, the eloquent businessman had often presented himself as Häfeli's opponent in the weeks and months before. Faes accepts the challenge, even if he is initially, as he says, "faced with a blank sheet of paper". "We had no balls, no press, no money."
In the absence of a suitable merger partner, the bankruptcy had even more drastic sporting consequences for Biel than it had for Xamax four years previously. The club from the tenth-largest city in Switzerland has to start again in the 2nd regional league, the sixth-highest level in football, with only three lower leagues below it. Instead of Lausanne, Xamax or Aarau, the opponents are now called Aarberg, Develier or Vicques. Unsurprisingly, hardly any players follow this path. Only one remains loyal to the club and bids farewell to professional life.
Instead, several former players return. Some with experience from the Challenge League, most are ambitious amateurs, regional greats. They are convinced by the project of bringing FC Biel back to professional football as quickly as possible. Faes stays out of the squad planning, leaving that to those "who know something about it".
Biel has been promoted twice in a row and has been playing in a national league again since 2021 with promotion to the Promotion League. Inevitably, players and coaches who have helped shape the new beginning have had to say goodbye along the way. "It hurts, but it's part of the business," says Faes.
Foresight and regional pride
But Biel wouldn't be Biel if there wasn't a bit of "drama" with Faes. Sometimes the president lacks the necessary distance. For example, he sometimes loudly criticizes the referees' performance at matches, steps onto the pitch or expresses himself somewhat nonchalantly. However, he cannot be accused of lacking passion. Moreover, although Faes likes to be in the limelight, he also emphasizes that there are people in the club who are much more important than he is.
In any case, since the experience with a president who threw everything over his head in order to lead the club to the national top as quickly as possible, different values apply at FC Biel. These include foresight and patience. There have been many offers from potential donors, says Faes. From Belgium, from Turkey, even a sheikh from Abu Dhabi visited him. Finally, the club entered into a partnership with Core Sports. The company owned by Zurich native Ahmet Schaefer owns the Ligue 2 club Clermont and also holds a minority stake in Austria Lustenau alongside Biel. It is important to Faes that the majority of the club's shares remain in Biel. "The club should belong to the region."
Biel's goal from the outset is to return to the Challenge League. "With our infrastructure and our fans, we simply belong there," says Faes. After all, FC Biel recorded 923 spectators in its last home game against Vevey. Only two of the five Challenge League games on the same weekend were better attended. Biel are currently in second place, one point behind Kriens. Overtaking the team from Central Switzerland is the top priority in the Seeland. A sensational run to the cup semi-finals would of course also be good for FC Biel, says Faes. Because, as we all know, anything is possible in the Cup, just like in the theater.
