The Network

In the last 25 years Dietmar has gained a lot of experience on an international level in the areas of transfer, marketing, sports mentoring (German Basketball Olympic Games 2000 & 2004, Basketball World Championship 2002, European Table Tennis Championships, Athletics World Championships, international football, e.g. Football World Cup 1998, 2006, 2014), consulting and management of athletes.

As a consultant and manager, he has been active in men’s football, e.g. for Cacau, Michael Kraft and Frank Schaefer, and in women’s football, e.g. for Dzsenifer Marozsán, Eugénie Le Sommer, Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, Anja Mittag, Asisat Oshoala, Lira Alushi (née. Bajramaj), Kathy Hendrich, Linda Dallmann, Jessica Carter, Maren Mjelde, Ann-Katrin Berger, Lena Lotzen, Leonie Maier, Lisanne Gräwe and many more. Furthermore, for coaches like e.g. Colin Bell, Sascha Glass, Gabor Gallai, Miguel Santos, Gemma Davis and Clara Schöne as well.

Born and raised in Brazil, Cacau started his professional football career in 1999, playing for 1. FC Nürnberg, VfB Stuttgart and Cerezo Osaka, among others. In 2007 he became German champion and won bronze at the World Cup with the German national team in 2010. After ending his active career as a footballer, he obtained a UEFA coaching A-license and studied sports management. From 2016 to 2021, he was the Integration Officer for the German Football Association.

Cacau has been part of Ness&Network for many years. He already showed a lot of interest in our work as a client during his football career and is now managing director and shareholder. Cacau is involved in all processes of the company and uses his contacts to expand our reach in men’s football as well as to guide and advise footballers in their own best interest.

Lydia is one of the pioneer members of our agency and has witnessed our development from the very beginnings to the high level at which Ness&Network is functioning today. She knows every detail of our agency and is fully involved in the international cooperation with clients and partners of our network.

She obtained her MSc in Sustainable Development at the university of Uppsala and uses her expertise in the areas of international sustainable management and development to assist the whole team in any task. This starts at the presentation of the company on various platforms. Thanks to her language skills she additionally supports the customer service and is active in the cooperation with partners worldwide. She maintains close contact and friendships especially with the younger athletes. She is always available to give advice and support to all athletes and staff.

Lira started her successful football career in Duisburg and later played for world-renowned clubs like 1.FFC Turbine Potsdam, 1. FFC Frankfurt and Paris Saint Germain. She also played for the German national team for 10 years. Throughout her career, Lira won several national and international titles. She became World Champion in 2007, European Champion in 2009 & 2013, Champions League Winner in 2010 and won several German titles. In 2011, she was voted the third best female footballer in the world at the FIFA BALLON D’OR.

Ness&Network has accompanied Lira through all the ups and downs of her active football career. This long-term relationship developed into a strong bond and trust between her and Ness&Network, which led to her joining the team as scout and mentor after her active footballer career. Thanks to her professional experience, she not only maintains good contacts in women’s football, but also is a valuable mentor and advisor for young rising athletes, especially in terms of important career decisions.

After completing his Master’s degree in Finance and Accounting, David has been working as consultant for banks with a focus on regulatory reporting for five years. After working in an international bank for four years in between, he returned to bank consultancy where he is still active now.

In his youth, David played in the U19 Junior Bundesliga, but had to end his career early due to a serious knee injury. Furthermore, he got to know the international professional football through his father Janos Marozsán (former Hungarian national player) and his sister Dzsenifer Marozsán (current German national player and player at Olympique Lyon).

As part of Ness&Network, David works as scout, specializing in the Hungarian football market, where he maintains good relationships with all top clubs and national players. Additionally, he is intensively involved as a high-level expert in both the German and French football markets.

Yasin is a successful entrepreneur in Germany, as well as father of four children. He himself played football in his youth, in the German Ober- and Verbands league. After finishing his university of applied sciences degree, he decided to end his footballer career and become an entrepreneur instead.

As part of the network of Ness&Network, Yasin is active as Scout and, in this role, brings many years of experience as well as an own extensive contact network with him.

Tarczyńska, a former professional footballer, has had an impressive career and was a client of Ness & Network for many years. During her active time, she played for renowned clubs such as VfL Wolfsburg, MSV Duisburg and SV Werder Bremen. In addition, she won the title of Polish champion several times and was an important part of the Polish national team, for which she played over 60 matches.

As a result of the long-standing cooperation and trust that has developed between Aga and Ness & Network, she decided to join the team and act as a scout and mentor. Her expertise here lies particularly in the Polish market. Thanks to her own professional experience, Tarczyńska not only has valuable contacts, but also the necessary understanding of the requirements and needs of footballers and clubs. This enables her to offer valuable advice and support for optimal results and successful cooperations.

Tarczyńska, była zawodowa piłkarka, miała imponującą karierę i przez wiele lat była klientką Ness & Network. W czasie swojej aktywności zawodowej grała dla renomowanych klubów, takich jak VfL Wolfsburg, MSV Duisburg i SV Werder Brema. Ponadto kilkukrotnie zdobyła tytuł mistrzyni polski i była ważną częścią Reprezentacji Polski, dla której zagrała w ponad 60 meczach międzynarodowych.

W wyniku wieloletniej współpracy i zaufania, które rozwinęło się między Agą a Ness & Network, zdecydowała się dołączyć do zespołu i działać jako skaut i mentor. Jej doświadczenie obejmuje w szczególności rynek polski. Dzięki własnemu doświadczeniu zawodowemu Tarczyńska ma nie tylko cenne kontakty, ale także niezbędne zrozumienie wymagań piłkarzy i klubów. Umożliwia jej to oferowanie cennych porad i wsparcia w celu uzyskania optymalnych wyników i udanej współpracy.

Peter Ottache represents Ness&Network Africa. Based in Lagos, Nigeria, he is primarily responsible for all our African athletes. He manages the global administration of international transfers from Africa and is the main scout for talented young athletes on the ground. Thanks to his cultural and social knowledge, these athletes receive sustainable and effective support that is fully adapted to their individual needs. Furthermore, he represents Ness&Network on the highest functionary level among African football federations.

Abi started his professional football career in 1992 playing for Fortuna Düsseldorf, FC Augsburg and FC Toulouse, among others. In 1996, he wrote history with the Nigerian national team in the Olympic Games in Atlanta, by being the first African team to win the gold medal. He was awarded the National Honour M.O.N. and National Sport Merit Award. Today, he is Managing Director of World Impact Communication and Team Manager in the Lagos Junior League.

As part of Ness&Network, his high-level expertise is mainly focused on scouting young top talents on the Nigerian football market. Thanks to his former European career, he knows the requirements for the football market outside his home country in detail.

Vlademir started his football career at the age of 14 with Nacional AC de São Paulo and later played for clubs like CA Linense and Rio Claro FC, as well as 1.FC Nürnberg and A.Sebatspor. After ending his footballer career, he started working in several management areas in professional and amateur football, including career management and scouting (performance analysis) of athletes.

In his position as head of department Brazil for Ness&Network, Vlademir is responsible for the Brazilian office, but also specializes on scouting in the South American football market. Thanks to his own career he is very well connected internationally.

Andy is a former professional footballer and has been the athletics coach for the first team of Borussia Mönchengladbach for many years. By now, he is self-employed and uses his specializations in e.g. prevention and performance diagnostics to bring professional athletes to their top athletic level – not only after injuries. In that he includes his personal network of independent doctors and specialists.

As part of Ness&Network, he is a very empathetic, independent consultant regarding injuries and athletics. He is able to either provide a good solution himself or to alternatively find the needed professional medical contact, for any problem.

Michaela, as physiotherapist, combines the latest knowledge and technologies with traditional practices, empathy, strength and a high level of professionalism. She finds enough time for each patient to fully understand their problem and to, in exchange with Andy, develop the best individual therapy.

Additionally, she is working in our office administration.

Michael has been an international professional goalkeeper for 12 years. In the last 18 years he has been working as goalkeeper coach in professional football. In that position, he won the Chinese Super League Cup with Beijing Sinobo Guoan FC and took part in the Asian Champions League. The 30-year experience are the base of his successful international coaching with juniors and seniors. In that, his main goal is to improve goalkeepers step by step through meticulous training.

“The philosophy of my coaching work is to actively train goalkeepers and prepare them for the game. A crucial part of the training is working with the video camera. It helps goalkeepers, who have a different perception of actions and movements, to reach the right goal more quickly and closely after analysis. Through the goalkeeper’s active actions, I show them a way to master situations more successfully.”

Horst Kletke leads the law firm Kletke & Kollegen, based in Frankfurt am Main.
He specialises in labour law, individual employment law, employment protection law and sports law.

With many years of experience at a global level, he is one of the leading international lawyers in the football industry and a highly valued member of the Ness&Network network.

Florent has been the sports marketing manager for PUMA France for nine years. In 2016, he decided to create his own agency, FC Sport. His goal is to increase the perception and visibility of professional athletes in France and to advise them on the development of their image rights.

“I spent 9 years developing the brand image of a company with associating them with professional athletes. Now my goal is to advise athletes in detail on their behalf. I am very happy to be a partner of NESS & Network and to develop the image of great players like Eugénie Le Sommer and Dzsenifer Marozsán. I am very grateful for that. Our marketing plan includes, among other things, to develop football camps for our players to inspire more young girls to play football and to contribute to the development of women’s football. We are working on that.”

Graduate Financial Economist Torsten Märte has been working as tax inspector for the Hessian tax authorities since 1990 and is now working as tax consultant. He is the co-founder of the tax consultancy “Jakowetz & Partner”, which is a key long-term cooperation partner of our network.

Tado Horstmann is an independent broker for insurance, finance, real estate and financing who specializes on the needs of professional athletes. In this capacity, he is looking after more than 100 athletes from various fields.

He is managing director and shareholder of GH Sportfinanz UG (haftungsbeschränkt), lives in Hannover and has been a partner of Ness&Network for several years.

Maximilian Sommer, Director Sports, Sponsoring & Athletes at LOBECO GmbH, is our expert for digital marketing and evaluation of Sponsoring-Rights of all our athletes.

Christiane has been working in a medium-sized company in the energy sector for 25 years. For the past five years, she has been active as manager and personal coach, focusing on personal development and change processes. As part of Ness&Network, her passion lies on people and their needs.

“Coaching is about YOU and YOUR individual needs:
Resource-oriented work in which you discover and shape your personal strengths and potentials. Appreciative, individual, goal and solution-oriented work in a spirit of partnership and trust. You find clarity sorting your thoughts, worries and ideas, and decide for yourself which way is the best for you to reach your goal. Possible topics include conflict resolution, decision-making, relationship clarification, personal wishes and visions, and development in the private and professional spheres.”

Mirko Kappes has been a freelance sports photographer since 2013.
He is involved in women’s football since 2012 and discovered sports photography in 2013. Since then, he has been active in women’s football with his camera.
Two European Championships (2013 / 2017), a World Cup (2015) as well as photographic accompaniment in 18 different countries testify to his passion.

The challenge of digitalisation has changed the needs of brands, SMEs and society forever. In modern times, companies are confronted with a multitude of technical possibilities to communicate their corporate brand.
However, they often lack the knowledge or ability to evaluate their possibilities.
We translate tasks into qualified requirements, show perspectives on new business models and make companies fit for the future.

“As a global sporting goods manufacturer, PUMA is committed to working with experts from a wide range of fields in the area of sports marketing, and Ness&Network has established itself as an absolute expert in women’s football over many years.

PUMA has been a strong partner in women’s football for several decades and since the increased professionalisation of women’s football, we also see it as part of our responsibility to be a reliable sponsor and partner for the athletes, accompanying them in their sporting development. In this context, football shoes are the decisive tool for every player’s daily training. PUMA treats female and male players with the same meticulous attention to detail and always strives to deliver the ideal shoe.

The good and long-standing cooperation with Ness & Network has led to the fact that we now have an appealing portfolio of female PUMA players at Ness&Network. Therefore, it is and always will be a great pleasure for us to go joint sporting ways with N&N.”

Manolo Schürmann Head of Sports Marketing Team Sport PUMA international division

“We – that’s Eric and Tobias – founded MyDearCaptain GmbH on 01.02.2018. Why? Quite simply! We are convinced of what we do for our customers: from conception to consulting to implementation – we bring passion and competence to all phases of cooperation behind your event.

Our passion: unique events, expressive communication, the highest standards of quality and innovation, and impressive results!   Our expertise: years of agency experience, strategic conception, target-group-specific approach and personality.

We realise the communication for your goals!”