60 years of “campfire”? Bundesliga celebrates anniversary
Updated: 08/23/2023, 11:54 am | Reading time: 5 minutes By Jan Mies, Holger Schmidt and Andreas Schirmer, dpa
Sports philosopher Gunter Gebauer takes a critical view of developments in professional football.
Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa
The Bundesliga as a campfire? Many developments in football are viewed very critically. But the enthusiasm remains – actually a phenomenon.
Berlin. Colorful captain’s armbands, Saudi millions or corrupt officials play a supporting role at the cheese stand. On Saturdays, in his second home on the market, it’s all about the “Effzeh”, says Gunter Gebauer, about 1. FC Köln.
The questionable excesses of professional football, which also burden the Bundesliga in its anniversary year – repressed for the moment. “Everyone is enthusiastic about FC,” says Gebauer of the German Press Agency. “And it always has been.”
The regulars’ table at the cheese stand in Cologne is also in Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Dortmund, Duisburg and Fürth. Wherever football has been played and lived more or less successfully at weekends for decades. The Bundesliga is “perhaps not the big campfire anymore,” says Gebauer, but it is still a “strong offer of identification”.
Actually a phenomenon. In the six decades since the decision to found the club in July 1962 in Dortmund’s Gold Hall, German football has had a number of scandals and scandals. Financial fraud, doping, corruption, bribery, racism and violence brought in from outside – but there were only a few dents from time to time. The troubled DFB in particular is currently lagging behind with the national team, which has been weak for years, and absurd developments on the transfer market.
Living worlds of the players and the fans “light years” apart
“The financial aspect is something that has always been viewed with suspicion in Germany, much more so than in other countries,” says Gebauer. “Football is becoming a trading exchange, which is disturbing.” The world of the players is now “light years” away from that of the fans. In the hype surrounding Bayern Munich’s star striker Harry Kane, who cost over 100 million euros, many questionable developments had recently been consolidated. When it comes to the personality cult, football is in no way inferior to the glittering world of the film and music industry at the top. But the enthusiasm remains.
“Otherwise we wouldn’t have filled the stadium against Darmstadt and Heidenheim in eight or ten hours in advance,” says Eintracht Frankfurt’s board spokesman Axel Hellmann, who recently also led the German Football League. “There are clubs that have a high level of authenticity and mean something emotionally to the fans. The connection is strong and carries.”
Kick-off – the evening newspaper newsletter for HSV
Sign up now for the free weekly matchday newsletter
The Bundesliga can be “compared to the crime scene,” says Gebauer. “Each region has its commissioner and its team, and we stick to that. On Sunday evening, Germany is sitting in front of the crime scene in the first program. These are rest rooms that we need. We are bombarded with terrible news, about economic events, about the war, about the dispute between the parties, about the rise of the AfD.”
Almost countless books and films are dedicated to the special features, highlights, confusion and scandals. The further development in six decades is enormous: There are no video recordings of the first goal by Dortmund’s Timo Konietzka in the first Bundesliga game on August 24, 1963 at Werder Bremen because there were no TV cameras in the stadium – national player Jonas Hofmann also made a change this summer to Leverkusen because Bayer coach Xabi Alonso convinced him via video call.
Allofs: “Football is a topic that concerns everyone”
“We live in a world that is changing by leaps and bounds,” says 66-year-old Klaus Allofs, who began his career a good ten years after the Bundesliga was founded. Without wanting to “hang the league too high”, football is “a topic that concerns everyone – that may also be the recipe for success”.
The foundation – of the 129 delegates of the then DFB Bundestag 103 were in favor – was “a brilliant idea”, says the current sports director of Fortuna Düsseldorf. There have always been phases in which popularity has suffered. But football was “never replaced as number one” – despite all the background noise. “What the Bundesliga can deliver in terms of excitement and enthusiasm, it showed last season.”
The league is a “successful model,” says Allofs. “Nevertheless, we have to keep looking at what developments are going on, keep learning, especially in relation to the fans, so that we understand them.”
Gebauer also warns of the latter. “The stars have always earned significantly more and have had their own spheres in which they have lived,” said the sports philosopher. “Reading today what was earned back then is ridiculous, but that was the beginning of a development that became disturbing for fans. It’s out of proportion – when those who dismount drive luxury cars, like at Schalke two years ago, and those who cheer them on have just lost their jobs.
More articles from this category can be found here: 1. Bundesliga
( © dpa-infocom, dpa:230823-99-925553/4 (dpa) )
2023-08-23 07:46:29
#years #campfire #Bundesliga #celebrates #anniversary