It’s supposed to be hot. And that’s why there were a few important rules of conduct in advance. One should “please think of loose, airy clothing and a hat”, it said in an email to the participants. Possibly it will also be quite hot this Sunday beyond the midsummer temperatures. After all, the conference of the “Wir Herthaner” initiative (from 11 a.m., Bergiusstraße 33, Neukölln) is about the future of Hertha BSC.

Behind the initiative is Kay Bernstein, one of five applicants for the presidency of the Berlin Bundesliga club. On Sunday next week, at an extraordinary general meeting, elections will be held, in addition to a president, his representative and up to five assessors. The application period ends on Saturday at midnight.

In addition to Bernstein, the former Ultra, the current board member Ingmar Pering, Michael Baumgärtner, Marvin Brumme and the former CDU politician Frank Steffel, who is currently still president of the handball Bundesliga club Füchse Berlin and for himself, are candidates to succeed the resigned Werner Gegenbauer Hertha’s ex-coach Pal Dardai recently said in a video message.

The Hungarian is sitting on a terrace by the water, apparently he’s on vacation. He looks well recovered. “It’s time for a real fresh start,” says Dardai, who is currently negotiating with the club about terminating his contract, into the camera of his cell phone. “From my point of view, Frank Steffel is a very interesting and honest candidate.” With the Foxes he showed that he could do it, so he, Dardai, believes that it could also work at Hertha.

Many were surprised that Hertha’s former coach positioned himself so clearly. Also Steffel’s opponent Bernstein. “I was a bit irritated,” said the owner of an event and communications agency in an interview with “Kicker”.

Steffel is the declared candidate of choice for Klaus Brüggemann, the new chairman of the Hertha BSC supervisory board. “He would have the character and the assertiveness to steer Hertha in the right direction,” says Brüggemann. Bernstein is critical of the fact that he, as head of the supervisory board, has positioned himself so clearly in favor of an applicant. Brüggemann does not oversee, but creates. “He overestimates his skills,” he says. “The supervisory board was not well advised to do it that way.”

Bernstein wants to approach the topic of the presidency differently and put his application on a broad basis. This is one of the reasons why his initiative has invited to a conference this Sunday. “In this extremely difficult phase that our club is going through, we want to pool the strengths, skills and emotions of all Herthaners,” says the initiative’s website. “At the end of this conference day, there is a short-, medium- and long-term mandate for action for the presidency to be elected a week later.”

Or, as Bernstein puts it: “Worst case scenario, it’s going to be a beautiful blue and white day where we talked a lot but didn’t get much out of it. In the best case, we can think of the biggest construction sites and the best measures that Hertha must tackle consistently.”

Representatives of all well-known fan initiatives, representatives of the support group for the east curve, the executive committee, supervisory board, management, members and employees of the association were explicitly invited to the conference. In principle, anyone can take part, and around 150 registrations had been received by Saturday noon.

Bernstein’s team now officially includes Fabian Drescher, who has been a member of Hertha’s executive committee since 2016. He is running for the post of Vice President. Should Drescher not be elected, he would vacate his place as a simple member of the Executive Committee. “I think that’s consistent,” explains Bernstein. “He consistently says: Yes, restart, but under Kay Bernstein.”

When he presented his candidacy in early May, Bernstein put his chances of being elected Hertha’s new president at around 30 percent in an interview with the Tagesspiegel. He is now much more confident: “I would now see my chances at around 55 percent,” he says. “They’ve gone up significantly — at least from what our radar and feedback is saying.”