Hamburg - The fact that it will take two people to fill his role says all about Uli Hoeness' rule over three decades as general manager of Germany's number one football club Bayern Munich. When the former Munich winger Hoeness moves on to become Munich president on Friday (pending a vote of approval from the annual members meeting), Christian Nerlinger will be the only person responsible for the sporting aspect while a marketing person will be named next year to fill the void.
Hoeness, 57, took the job in the spring of 1979, when Munich was in financial trouble and then club president Wilhelm Neudecker was only looking "for an inexperienced buffer for an upcoming tax probe."
Hoeness' skills and the growing economic power of football led to a stunning transition, with turnover spinning into new dimensions from 12 million euros in 1979 to 300 million euros in 2008.
Ticket sales accounted for 85 per cent of the income when he started, now it is down to 18 per cent as television rights and merchandising are key sources of income.
During his reign, Hoeness was the only survivor of a plane crash in 1982 and he was also instrumental that Christoph Daum did not become Germany coach due to cocaine problems made public by Hoeness.
Known as the "attack division," Hoeness had famous wars of words with rivals such as Werder Bremen and Borussia Dortmund.
But the same man urged his former attacking partner Gerd Mueller to undergo an alcohol rehabilitation programme and then gave him a job at the club. He also stood by Sebastian Deisler when the promising player was suffering from depression.
Hoeness won three European titles with Munich as a player 1974-1976, the 1972 European championship and the 1974 World Cup with West Germany, before nagging knee problems starting in 1975 ended his career prematurely in 1979 at the age of 27.
The Suedeutsche Zeitung magazine said last Friday that this short playing career defined his role as manager.
"You must always bear this wound, this deep disappointment, in mindwhen you talk about the extraordinary passion and impulsiveness of the manager Uli Hoeness.
"The source of his passion - his closeness to the team and his dances of joy and depression over 30 years on the bench - is probably to be found in this wound, that his desire as an active footballer was never properly fulfilled," the magazine said.
Hoeness' success as a general manager is impressive: the 2001 Champions League title, 1996 UEFA Cup, 16 Bundesliga titles and the only back-to-back league and cup doubles in Bundesliga history.
He was influential in getting Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben and other star players to Munich, but also had to swallow the disappointments that Otto Rehhagel or Juergen Klinsmann were not the great Munich coaches they were expected to be.
Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge says that Hoeness reached "milestones" and named the changes "a big transition for the club and the board."
Former Munich coach Jupp Heynckes named him "the soul of Munich" and Germany's popular football reporter Marcel Reif even linked the fate of Munich to that of Hoeness.
"Could it be that the end of the era of the manager Uli Hoeness, who gave the club its aura, ... also ends Munich's era?" wondered Reif.
Hoeness has already moved from the bench to the stands this season, but Friday's change will not mean that he will disappear for good from the public eye, for instance to his sausage factory which is now run by his son.
"I will continue to work very actively for this club," said Hoeness. "I will do what is good for Bayern. I have done that all my life and I will do that in the future as well."
