Bayern Munich chief eyeing China after Hong Kong visit, living dream following Adidas role

If it is true that if you find a job you love, you will never work a day in your life, then Herbert Hainer has lived an idle existence.

The CEO of Adidas for 15 years until 2016, having originally joined the company in 1987, Hainer is now into his seventh year as president of Bayern Munich.

The self-confessed sport nut said he had the “beauty to work in what I’m passionate about” for most of his adult life.

In Hong Kong for his club’s Audi Football Summit meeting with Aston Villa on Friday, and speaking to the South China Morning Post in a plush bedroom at the team’s Rosewood hotel accommodation in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hainer retains his boyish enthusiasm for football.

The 2012 Champions League final defeat by Chelsea in the German side’s own Allianz Arena still stings. Their triumph in the tournament eight years later, when the entire club entourage was holed up in a Lisbon hotel for the closing stages of a competition that had to be reformatted because of the coronavirus pandemic, was a personal and professional highlight.

“There were 60 or 70 of us permanently interacting all week, and it brought the team so close together,” Hainer said.

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