Bundesliga football club boss Oliver Mintzlaff joins Austrian drinks company Red Bull as its new CEO. He is said to have been given the post at the request of the late company founder Mateschitz. The move is thought to have significant ramifications for the Red Bull Formula 1 operations.

The Austrian company Red Bull is getting a new manager after the death of Dietrich Mateschitz, founder of the Red Bull brand in its current form. The boss of Bundesliga football club RB Leipzig, Oliver Mintzlaff, is leaving the cup winners and will move over to his new role on November the 15th according to Bild.

New boss shares power

Bild reports that Mintzlaff, who has been in charge of RB Leipzig since 2014, will become one of three new managing directors at the beverage company. Alongside Mateschitz’s son Mark and the Thai owner of Red Bull, Mintzlaff will become one of three powerful men at the globally renowned brand. He will be responsible for the company’s sports activities with investments in football, ice hockey, Formula 1 and sailing, among others, as well as the TV channel Servus-TV.

“Shortly after seven o’clock on Friday morning, the beverage company had informed its employees about the decision by e-mail”, reported the Leipziger Volkszeitung news website.

However, the 47-year-old Mintzlaff is to remain connected to the football club RB Leipzig, according to the news agency dpa. There is no direct successor for the former track and field athlete at the football club, the cup winner wants to continue working with the existing structures for the time being.

According to Bild, Mintzlaff is said to have been given the post at the request of the company’s founder Dietrich Mateschitz, who died on the 22th of October. Mateschitz created a broad-based corporate empire with the Red Bull brand. In October he succumbed to cancer.

At least officially, the future of RB Leipzig is considered secure even after Mateschitz’s death, as Mintzlaff told Sport Bild as recently as Wednesday:

“I neither expect nor fear any changes in Red Bull’s support. We will continue what has been built and developed here in the future with the same passion and motivation.”

His move from football club to financial backer was already certain by then. Mintzlaff had repeatedly indicated internally in the past that he did not see his future at RB Leipzig forever. In the summer, he turned down an offer from Chelsea FC.

Future of the F1 operation in question

As for Red Bull Racing in Milton Keynes, the team of current champion Max Verstappen, team boss Christan Horner and chief designer Adrian Newey have no ownership in Red Bull F1.

Horner and Newey have been given a free hand by Mateschitz to run the Red Bull F1 team autonomously. Whether this will continue in the future is now up in the air. The new appointment in Mintzlaff could mean this arrangement will now change.

What kind of provisions Dietricht Mateschitz has made for the Red Bull F1 racing outfits future is uncertain though many F1 observers were shocked that the Milton Keynes squad was in negotiations with Porsche to sell half of their team. 

With the death of the CEO, it’s quite possible that the Porsche deal will be back on.