http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3607291744&category=2914 Union Solingen is for sale at ebay: We sell the marketing rights of 1.FC Union Solingen... Background of this uncommon auction is not only to gain a price as good as possible, but mainly to search for professional investors, who guarantee the existance of the club and continue the sportive development. The marketing rights include the right to use the name 1.FC Union Solingen 1990 e.V., the right of all advertising and all media rights... The investor gains all income from merchandising and VIP events, but has to pay all costs. The investor gets 100 season tickets every year without further payment including parking space... The contract is unlimited and can't be terminated before August 2009 with 3 months period of notice. The investor takes over all debts of about 210.000 Euro. The club is not nearly able to repay these debts. Union Solingen is a traditional team with 14 years in 2.Bundesliga. Union was reached through until D6 and had to file insolvency in 1999. Within the next three years the club promoted twice and now is in Oberliga Nordrhein. Home of Union is the Stadium at the Hermann-Löns-Weg in Solingen-Oligs with about 16.000 capacity. Union is a popular club; the top game against Fortuna Düsseldorf was attended by 6.500, the average attendance is 1.800. Currently Union is in the relegation fight, but the sportive substance of the team is big enough to surely avoid relegation [50-50 chances I'd say]. The stadium has 2.200 covered seats and 14.000 standing tickets (400 covered). Currently three people are the club officials. New elections are planned in the next weeks. The investor could create new structures and realise his concept because of that. Probably the club will make debts in this season. As the club had no debts until June 30, 2002 the sum will be less than 100.000 Euro. Many contracts are expiring and the club will have a lower budget next season. Solingen is a city with 166.000 citizens. About nine million people are living in 50 km surrounding. ---- That's your chance Current offer is 37.050 Euro, nine days left for the auction.
The price was up to 400.000 Euro yesterday when they stopped it. Surely this just were some idiots fooling around. Today they started the auction anew with the starting price of 1 Euro. Price went up to 170.150 Euro at the moment, but you can assume that this are just another jerks fooling around although this time Union explicitly stated that people with fun offers have to face legal consequences. This is the new link: http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2529453344&category=29122
I thought about doing this with the Wolves, but ran out of time. I'm not sure the league would have approved it either.