Frankfurt / Main (dpa) – The great revolution is not to be expected. On Wednesday (12 noon) the German Football League will present the results report of the “Taskforce Future Professional Football”.
According to dpa information, the eight-page paper primarily contains recommendations for action that should put the overheated billion-dollar business on a healthier footing by 2030.
“We don’t just want to somehow get through the crisis and then carry on as before,” DFL boss Christian Seifert said in an “FAZ” interview in April and announced the task force. At the same time, there was increasing pressure from politicians and, above all, fan organizations who are calling for a change in values. It was said at the time that there could be no “keep it up!”.
When the debate about professional football picked up speed last year, the first corona wave was rolling over Germany. Now, during the second wave, it has long been clear that essentials have not changed, even if the clubs suffered financial losses. One result of the task force is, after all, that the Bundesliga clubs should be made more responsible for social and ecological issues – and that they should make a clear commitment to women’s football.
“Central issues for the future of professional football in Germany are to be examined from different perspectives,” Seifert said before the first switch to the three working groups with 37 experts from sport, society, politics and business.
During the pandemic, Seifert himself repeatedly warned about changes – for example: “If it is possible to cap manager salaries, then it must also be possible to cap the salaries of consultants and players.” viewed the economic crisis critically.
In many places, a wage waiver was debated or implemented at the Bundesliga clubs, but rarely transparently and permanently. After all, the German transfer market is no longer quite as wild: in the winter changeover period that ended on Monday, the clubs did not invest 50 million euros. In the previous year they still spent almost 200 million euros at the halfway point of the season.
“After the meetings and the exchange in the task force, I am convinced that professional football will change. I think we are all aware that this will not go bang on the floor, ”said working group member and member of the Bundestag Britta Dassler (FDP) of the German Press Agency. There are simply too many different interests for that.
Sig Zelt from the fan organization “ProFans” is skeptical that the task force will achieve a lot. “If there are to be changes, the people who are relevant to the decision must really want that,” Zelt told the newspapers “Münchner Merkur” and “tz”. “And I don’t have that impression. You can hold discussions until you drop, and you can set up task forces without decision-making authority. In the end you will say: We exchanged points of view. But nothing more. Unfortunately.”
The fan organizations have developed their own concepts in the “Future of Professional Football” project. In the future, business should be “close to the ground, sustainable and contemporary”. How far the fans and especially the loyal ultra scenes have distanced themselves from professional football will only become clear when spectators are allowed to enter the stadiums again at some point.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210202-99-268607 / 2
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