Long terms of office for managers are often viewed critically, and not only in the BFV. In your specific case, what do you say in response to the criticism of your long tenure?

If you look at the composition of the presidium during the current legislature alone, there have always been changes and therefore also new impetus. New people such as Özgür Özvatan and Dirk Zimmermann, who replaced colleagues who left at short notice, or Malte Schruth, who was newly elected to the Executive Board at the last Association Day, have ensured this. So I don't think that any one person plays a major role in this. The Executive Committee is not a one-man event, it is a team effort.

Why is continuity so important for the cooperation of the Executive Committee?

It is important for the individual fields of activity that you have people who have experience in their field, who have the knowledge and know the connections and who know the ways, both here in the BFV structures and in the cooperation with the authorities in the state of Berlin and the other associations, such as the LSB, the DFB or the NOFV. This network and the good contacts with the clubs that we have on the executive committee are important. That's why I also attach great importance to following a clear plan when making changes and passing on experience to ensure that we are always fit for purpose. We saw four years ago in the youth sector what this sudden change in personnel led to. I am not making any personal accusations here, but simply pointing to the realization after an election that the tasks are very extensive. It's important to give successors a bit of training and prepare them for what to expect when they take over a position. This is also a responsibility that comes with leadership positions.

The "Future BFV" reform project, which aims to make the Berlin Football Association the most innovative and professional regional association in the DFB, will be brought to a close with the Association Congress. In your opinion, what are the most important goals that have been achieved in this process?

First of all, I think it's good that we have now implemented 87% of the recommendations for action that club representatives helped to develop, in many different areas such as social responsibility, and also that we have continued to address the issue of committee composition, knowing full well that this is still not a sure-fire success, especially as far as the proportion of women is concerned. However, I believe that we have achieved key and important goals within the association, for example with the new brand identity and the TEAM BERLIN APP, as well as ultimately the idea of developing the new succession strategy. This also includes placing a stronger focus on women's and girls' soccer. This fits in with the pleasing developments at club level that we are currently experiencing in the city. With the DFB-Assist project, which we have developed together with the German Football Association, we will continue to provide important impetus in the coming years, especially with regard to the development of girls' soccer. At the same time, we remain aware of the challenges we face, for example with sports grounds and coaching in this city. There are many important things that we have achieved and that we still have to tackle in the future.

The results of "Future BFV" are to be transferred to the new follow-up structure "Team Berlin Strategy 2026-2029" after the Association Day. What will be the core objectives of this new strategy and how will the clubs benefit from it?

The strategy will be based on two pillars. Firstly, we want to continue to drive the development of the association. Among other things, this includes the goal of stabilizing the financial situation of the BFV. But above all, we also want to focus more on club development. In particular, this involves the topic of volunteering: How can we strengthen people? How can we make it easier for volunteers? How can we make volunteering more attractive? Developing a culture of recognition is also an important challenge. In addition, it will be a matter of strengthening the associations as a whole by providing more advice. We have club advisors who go to the clubs with ideas, and we have the DFB's master plan, which also helps the clubs because it rewards them for their work. These are approaches that can help us to significantly strengthen the clubs. We have noticed that clubs are complaining about not having enough volunteers. There is a shortage of staff. We need to look at how we can make the whole thing more attractive. How can we make amateur soccer more attractive so that we all enjoy it and don't experience frustration? This applies to our referees, coaches, team managers and club boards. We all need to become a unit in this TEAM BERLIN and implement the values that we have internalized together on the pitches at the weekend.

What are your hopes for the event next Saturday?

I very much hope that we will have constructive discussions. We have a manageable number of motions on the table, in contrast to previous years when it was much more extensive. But there are still important issues to discuss, and the clubs need to take a stand on them. One issue is how the clubs communicate with each other and how they communicate with us as an association - keyword: regional conferences: Have they proved their worth? How do the clubs feel about them? How do you see the future of these regional conferences? Furthermore, there are efforts to regionalize the league divisions more strongly, especially in the O-Level, in order to avoid long journeys, especially for games during the week, with the consequence that the opponents remain almost the same in each new season. Therefore, this topic of "regional scheduling" will be one where the clubs will have to decide and also tell us how they would like the games to be organized. Of course, I also hope that the clubs will vote for me for the next term of office, as well as for the election of the other members of the Executive Committee, so that we can continue to work with the same continuity after the Association Congress as we have now, including Hannah Bachhoffer, who we were able to recruit as a new candidate for the Young Generation U30 position. My team and I are optimistic about the Association Congress and I hope that we will experience a largely harmonious event at the tried-and-tested venue in Schöneberg. This will not and should not exclude critical questions, but my wish for Saturday is that we present a united image of Berlin amateur soccer to the outside world.