The bitter power struggle that engulfed TSG Hoffenheim throughout the 2025/26 season has returned to the spotlight, this time before the Mannheim Labor Court’s Heidelberg branch. Former club official Asmahan Gamgami and former club legal counsel Arno Metz are challenging their dismissals after Hoffenheim accused the pair of disloyal conduct and participating in an attempted internal takeover. Metz additionally faces an allegation of document forgery in connection with the proposed removal of sporting managing director Andreas Schicker.

Both former employees dispute Hoffenheim’s characterization of events. According to Kicker, proceedings on Tuesday increasingly centered on a sworn affidavit recently supplied by Frank Engelhardt, now the e.V.’s third chairman. The e.V. — short for eingetragener Verein, or registered association — is Hoffenheim’s member-controlled club organization.

The litigation represents the latest chapter in an extraordinary sequence of events extensively covered by Get German Football News since spring 2025.

How Hoffenheim’s power struggle began

Hoffenheim supporters continued protesting Wittmann and demanding greater transparency in the weeks that followed. Then came another major change. Jörg Albrecht resigned as Hoffenheim’s e.V. chairman in November, citing serious health concerns and “immense stress”. Christoph Henssler and Engelhardt subsequently assumed responsibility for the member-controlled side of the organization on an interim basis, with Henssler taking over as interim chairman.

That transition is crucial to understanding the case now before the labor court.

Henssler first protects Schicker

At that stage, Henssler and Schicker appeared aligned over the sporting managing director’s future. Schicker had attracted interest from elsewhere amid the administrative turmoil. RB Salzburg publicly confirmed him as a candidate before Wolfsburg also entered the race for his services. When Wolfsburg pushed to bring the Austrian to Lower Saxony, however, Henssler proved decisive in preventing Schicker from leaving Hoffenheim.

Henssler publicly praised Schicker’s work and vetoed a departure that had appeared increasingly plausible. Engelhardt spoke of constructive discussions with Hopp at shareholder level and emphasized the need to restore “stability, continuity and calm.” Schicker subsequently explained his own decision to stay, noting that he and marketing managing director Tim Jost were assuming greater responsibility following the removal of Schütz and Briel.

For a brief period, Hoffenheim appeared to have found a workable arrangement. It did not last.

Membership-list affair reignites the conflict

At the end of 2025, an internal membership list containing contact information and details concerning the duration of individual memberships was passed on without authorization inside the Hoffenheim organization. The timing made the incident politically explosive. Hoffenheim were preparing to elect a new e.V. leadership following Albrecht’s resignation. Hopp still held the capital majority in the professional football company, but had returned his former majority voting rights in 2023.

Under the restored 50+1 structure, the member-controlled e.V. again held the decisive voting majority on the shareholder side. Questions therefore arose over whether the membership information had been circulated in connection with identifying or supporting candidates for the forthcoming e.V. election. Tuesday’s labor-court proceedings added another significant detail. According to Kicker, the membership lists apparently also reached Hopp’s family office.

That fact alone does not establish what the data were used for. It does, however, add another layer to the dispute over why the lists circulated during such a politically sensitive period. The handling of the subsequent investigation soon became contentious as well.

The current labor proceedings are examining whether Gamgami and Metz were properly authorized to commission international law firm Freshfields to investigate an anonymous report submitted through Hoffenheim’s whistleblower reporting system.

During the investigation, Schicker also reorganized Hoffenheim’s whistleblower structure and transferred responsibility to an external provider. That intervention itself became part of the conflict between the GmbH management and Henssler’s interim e.V. leadership.

Hoffenheim’s lawyers now contend that the data-protection affair was artificially escalated as part of a broader attempt to remove the remaining management. One club attorney told the court that Jost had effectively been “taken out” through the whistleblower process.

Gamgami and Metz reject that interpretation.

From protecting Schicker to attempting to remove him

The internal alliances shifted dramatically by February. Hoffenheim announced on February 4 that the club and Jost had mutually agreed to end their cooperation effective February 1. That left Schicker as the sole managing director of the football company at the time. Henssler then called a shareholder meeting at which Schicker’s position was to be addressed.

The remarkable aspect of the episode was how thoroughly Henssler’s stance appeared to have changed. Only a few months earlier, he had been the decisive figure blocking Schicker’s proposed move to Wolfsburg. Now the interim e.V. chairman intended to remove Schicker from his managing-director position and reduce him to the role of sporting director.

Metz and Gamgami were discussed as possible interim replacements in management. The planned shareholder meeting never took place. Hopp applied to the Heidelberg Regional Court for interim relief preventing the shareholder meeting from proceeding. The meeting was blocked, with reporting at the time pointing to a formal defect in the attempted convocation.

Schicker remained managing director while Henssler resigned from his position.

Hoffenheim eventually elect new leadership

Following Henssler’s departure, Albrecht temporarily returned to help Engelhardt guide the e.V. toward its scheduled elections. Albrecht made clear that his return was temporary and categorically ruled out standing for another permanent term. On March 9, Hoffenheim members elected André Kreuzwieser as first chairman and former professional Florian Beil as second chairman. Engelhardt remained on the board.

That same evening, Hoffenheim also presented the findings of a commissioned external legal assessment into the membership-list affair. The assessment concluded that mistakes had been made in handling the data, but found no serious data-protection violation. Hoffenheim consequently declared the matter closed from the club’s perspective.

That was not quite the end of the regulatory question.

Later in March, the Baden-Württemberg state data-protection authority confirmed that it would conduct its own assessment. The club-commissioned legal opinion therefore did not constitute the final regulatory determination.

In terms of internal club politics, the crisis had largely subsided. Schicker survived the attempted demotion and remained central to Hoffenheim’s sporting operation. Henssler was gone. A newly elected e.V. leadership was in place.

Schicker remains in Hoffenheim’s management today, with Daniel Förderer now serving alongside him as the other managing director of the Fußball-Spielbetriebs GmbH.

The unanswered questions concern how the failed February attempt to remove Schicker came about and who authorized the actions that preceded it.

Metz document allegation now takes center stage

That brings the saga back to the present labor-court proceedings. One central issue concerns the invitation to the shareholder meeting that was supposed to address Schicker’s future. Hoffenheim accuse Metz of document forgery in connection with that invitation. Metz denies wrongdoing and maintains that he acted on behalf of the e.V. leadership then headed on an interim basis by Henssler, with Engelhardt serving alongside him.

Engelhardt’s newly submitted sworn statement now appears central to resolving those competing accounts. According to Hoffenheim’s lawyers, Engelhardt’s statement contradicts Metz’s description of how preparations for the shareholder meeting unfolded. Gamgami and Metz have also told the court that Henssler approached them about potentially assuming interim management responsibilities. Both maintain that they had no ambition to occupy those positions permanently.

Hoffenheim’s lawyers portray events differently, arguing that the data controversy was deliberately inflated to facilitate a broader revolt against Jost and Schicker. Gamgami’s attorney has characterized the proceedings as a “Bauernopferprozess” — essentially a process designed to produce scapegoats.

Old power struggle, new legal questions

Even the labor proceedings themselves have already generated controversy. A hearing originally scheduled for July ran into questions over possible bias involving two lay judges. One was reported to be a close friend of Hopp who also maintained a business relationship with Hoffenheim. The other was a works-council and supervisory-board member at SAP, the company Hopp co-founded and Hoffenheim’s principal sponsor.

Lawyers for Metz and Gamgami challenged both. The court upheld the recusals and appointed different lay judges for Tuesday’s hearing. The new chamber, chaired by court president Theodor Thewes, is seeking to move matters forward quickly. Decisions are expected by the middle of October. The formal Hoffenheim power struggle may be over, but the competing accounts of what happened inside it remain unresolved.

Was the membership-list controversy weaponized by a group attempting to remove Hoffenheim’s remaining management? Were Metz and Gamgami acting with the authority of Henssler’s interim e.V. leadership? Or, as their side argues, have two former employees become scapegoats for a much broader institutional conflict?

Those remain allegations and competing legal positions rather than established findings. The labor court will now attempt to determine which account is supported by the evidence. Whatever the outcome, the proceedings add another chapter to the debate surrounding Hoffenheim’s governance after Hopp relinquished his former special voting control.

The internal club political battle ended months ago.

The fight over what actually happened inside it has now reached the courtroom.