Bayern appoint former UBS Germany CEO as finance chief

BERLIN (Reuters) - Former UBS Germany Chief Executive Jan-Christian Dreesen will replace Bayern Munich finance boss Karl Hopfner at the end of the year, the German soccer powerhouses said on Thursday.

Hopfner, Bayern's deputy chairman of the board, had asked not to extend his contract past 2012. He has been at Bayern since 1983 overseeing unprecedented growth at the Bundesliga club, who have won a record 22 German titles.

"It was clear to us that it would be very difficult to replace Karl Hopfner," said Bayern president Uli Hoeness in a statement.

"But we are sure Jan-Christian Dreesen, with his abilities, can continue Karl Hopfner's successful work as we have been used to it in all areas."

Dreesen was most recently a board member of BayernLB commercial bank.

Bayern sold every ticket in their 69,000-capacity Allianz Arena, including almost 40,000 season tickets, for the 17 home league games this season as early as July 11.

The four-times European champions posted a 1.3 million euro ($1.59 million) profit in the 2010/2011 season on turnover of 290.9 million euros compared to 312 million in 2009/2010. There was also a jump in merchandising revenue of more than 10 percent to 43.9 million, up from 38.9 million.

Bayern are also looking forward to at least 20 million more in cash per year once the cost of their stadium has been paid off by 2020 or earlier.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Mark Meadows)