The main owner says the company has paid the salaries of its employees as well as all statutory payments.
The traditional HIFK playing in the men’s football league is in danger of going bankrupt. The company HIFK Fotboll Ab, which runs the main group, is in dire need of new funding.
– The acute need is half a million euros for this year and 140,000 euros in June, the company’s main owner and chairman of the board Heikki Pajunen tells STT.
Pajunen says that despite the difficult situation, the company has been able to pay all statutory payments and salaries to its employees.
Pajunen and his investor colleagues joined HIFK last November. The company was also in dire need of financing at the time. The group led by Pajunen was supposed to stabilize operations and start building the future.
A significant change occurred on February 24 when Russia invaded Ukraine. At the same time, in practice, the company’s fundraising hit the wall.
– Everything crystallizes in it. The idea was to look for more shoulders and it was known to be interested. After the start of the war, almost all the discussions have ended with no time, no energy or no ability to put in when there are so many bigger things going on, Pajunen explains.
Pajunen adds that the war has also affected the businesses of the company’s current owners.
– Their ability to self-finance their activities was significantly reduced, if not catastrophically.
No new investors sought
HIFK Fotboll Ab has 800 shareholders and new shareholders are constantly being sought. Since the Annual General Meeting in May, HIFK has been negotiating with new investor candidates, but the negotiations have not led to the desired outcome.
– After the Annual General Meeting, the option has emerged that someone would be interested in taking full ownership of the capital. There have been discussions all the time to get more shoulders and things resolved. Of course, the further we go, the more straightforward the solutions are.
Pajunen says that HIFK’s difficulties did not come as a surprise and the owners were aware that owning and running a sports club is not an easy project.
– But we were surprised how hard it is. We believed that we could find better solutions to difficulties than we had been able to. Was it then that the difficulties were greater, the skills less than expected, or something else? I had 50 different debates in March, 49 of which mentioned “Russia” and “now I can’t say anything for half a year”.
The aim is to solve the acute cash crisis by selling tickets
HIFK is now appealing to its shareholders as well as the entire 8,000-person HIFK community to save the football team.
The company is trying to get the acute cash crisis resolved by selling a total of 20,000 tickets to its next four home matches.
In addition to fundraising, ticket sales also performed poorly during the first half of the year and match tickets were sold 40 percent less than before the corona pandemic.
If HIFK does not receive the required EUR 140,000 during June, the period will be interrupted. Representative team activities would then continue at the fourth highest league level, where HIFK’s second team will play.