Good to Know

Since the 1990s, Eintracht have repeatedly fought for their sporting and financial survival. The club has attracted some truly distinctive characters — as players, managers and presidents. That much is known. Less well known are the circumstances surrounding the appointment of the club's most scandal-ridden president. In 1988, Matthias Ohms took office — and brought chaos in his wake.

Ohms was responsible, until his resignation following the 1996 Bundesliga relegation and a successful vote of no confidence, for both the most successful and the most tragic chapter in Eintracht's Bundesliga history. With a mix of megalomania, red-light-district connections and dubious personnel decisions, he was a perfect fit for the scandal club from the Main.

DER SPIEGEL summed up the special Eintracht atmosphere under Ohms as follows: "Under Ohms's leadership, Frankfurt's moneyed aristocracy and its nocturnal aristocracy entered a fatal alliance." An open secret whispered around the Eintracht scene during Ohms's tenure: parties with figures from the red-light world took place at his house — and valuable Eintracht memorabilia mysteriously disappeared.

Like few other Bundesliga clubs, Eintracht Frankfurt unite triumph and tragedy. The "capricious diva" has a knack for squandering seemingly certain successes throughout their turbulent league history — providing haters with the finest material. Conversely, the club can also wriggle free from apparently hopeless sporting situations time and again.

Also little known: Eintracht hold a very special Bundesliga record. As of December 2019, they are the club with the highest combined total of goals scored and conceded in a single Bundesliga season. In 1981/82, they scored 83 goals and conceded 72 — 155 goals in total. Pure entertainment.