A forward thinker: Mourning for Sepp Insam

Success always has many fathers. If FC Südtirol has arrived in Serie B, then this is the result of years of development and expansion work, which was crowned with success thanks to perseverance, patience and stubbornness. The fact that FC Südtirol is what it is today is thanks to one man in particular: Josef Sepp Insam. An investment consultant for many years, his greatest passion was football. In the haze of the two traditional clubs at the time, SSV Brixen and AC Bressanone, he helped a small neighborhood club called SV Milland get off the ground. That was in the mid-1970s. From there he rocketed what many saw as a rebellious, ambitious club up to the top league. Always with Sepp Insam in the lead. As a coach, as a sporting director, as a booster, as an uncomfortable and extremely ambitious figure. He always liked the role of a lone fighter best. The lateral thinker, the forward thinker. He was someone who was never afraid to make unpopular decisions. This often happened too quickly for most others. Sepp never cared whether he was popular or not. Rather, he was driven by his sporting ambition. And as we all know, success makes people jealous. He also had the vision of founding a club in which the best South Tyrolean amateur players would play together. In 1995, Insam put this vision into practice with Hanns Huber and Johann “Duka Hons” Krapf. SV Milland became FC Südtirol. The rest is well-known history: unstoppable - and in the first few years thanks to Sepp Insam's contacts with coaches and players, but also thanks to his negotiating skills - the very young club FC Südtirol plowed from the regional league up to Serie D. This followed in 2000 Promotion to the professionals in the then Serie C2. Sepp Insam was no longer active on the front line, but it was his last piece in the mosaic as a great doer. Football South Tyrol bows to this not always easy, sometimes very polarizing man, who had a decisive influence on the local amateur scene for decades and helped to take football in South Tyrol to a new, never-before-reached level. A little over a month ago at “his FCS” in the Drususstadion in Bolzano, Sepp Insam died far too early on October 31, 2022 at the age of 64 after a short, serious illness.

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A forward thinker: Mourning for Sepp Insam

On Monday, the co-founder of FC Südtirol, Sepp Insam, died as a result of a serious illness. An obituary.

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