Torben Hansen: Money is the most important thing? The journalist writes nonsense

Yesterday the AC Landshut team informed about signing a contract with Mads Hansen. The Dane was the object of interest of many Polish clubs, but he decided to sign for the German club. About why such a decision and about nonsense written by a journalist from Interia in an interview with the rider’s  father and manager, Torben Hansen.

Torben, it has recently been written very often that Mads is inundated with offers to start in Poland…

I do not follow the Polish press, but I can only publicly confirm to you that we had six or seven offers from clubs of different league classes.

Today there is information on one of the portals that you raised the rate by sending e-mails with an offer from club X to club Y and put them under pressure. By briefly writing money for the Hansens, that’s all.

(laughs) What can I tell you. The journalist who writes this is a rather poor journalist if he is at all because he is very far from the truth and at the same time puts me and my son in a negative light. This is plain slander. There was no sending of e-mails, and if according to the journalist, I am waiting for them. You just know perfectly well how things developed and why they ended this way.

I know for sure that, contrary to the opinion of even this journalist, money was not the most important thing for you.

Exactly. The financially best offer for us was the one submitted by Zielona Góra. The second one is the one from Gniezno. Landshut came third with its offer. If I only looked at the money offered to Mads, we would be in Zielona Góra. Neither I nor you have any doubts about this case.

Why then did the choice ultimately fall on Landshut?

The most important thing is the comfort of the competitor himself, his starting guarantees and the atmosphere. As you well know, Mads has competed in Germany for many years, we have friends and sponsors there, and this aspect of “environmental comfort” prevailed. We signed a contract there and I hope it will be good for us.

The offer from Landshut was much lower than that from Zielona Góra?

I can only say this. There is a significant difference.

Probably all this confusion would not have happened if Opole had promoted to the higher league?

I can tell you that if Opole was promoted, there would be no talks at all. We spent three wonderful years there and it’s hard to say goodbye. It is the right time for Mads to go to the higher league and we finally decided to do so. This gentleman journalist should check one more thing before he writes nonsense. For a long time, there was an option to stay in Opole at the cost of another year of racing in the lowest Polish league. If Opole agreed to 150,000 in the sponsorship agreement, the sentiment towards Polish would win with our „pursuit of money”. You can check this topic in Opole. Thus, you have concrete proof that money was not the most important for us at any stage and that what the journalist wrote was just nonsense and slander about us.