2024-02-14 14:17:02
Bundesliga opinion
The remarkable effect of the tennis ball protests
As of: 9:26 a.m. | Reading time: 2 minutes
Possible investor Blackstone withdraws
Are the massive fan protests having an impact? The DFL suffered a serious setback in its search for an investor. The financial company Blackstone has withdrawn from the bidding race. This leaves only one possible partner for the controversial deal.
Ultras have been throwing tennis balls in the stadium for weeks – and straining the nerves of television viewers. Are they really just “chaotics”? Or is it about defending a German cultural asset? The first noticeable impact of the protests should make all football fans sit up and take notice.
Football fans throw tennis balls in the stadium to disrupt the game because for them it is no longer the way it should be. Anyone who is not standing in the curve, but in the stands, who is sitting in front of the television, could see it like this: The Ultras are once again acting as the only true fans of football, as the conscience of a silent majority. It’s just a few “chaoters” (boulevard) and “self-promoters” (feuilleton) who spoil everyone else’s fun and drag things out with tennis balls.
The protest is directed against investors in general and the DFL, the German Football League as the representative of the clubs that negotiates with such investors, in particular. Football, say the sofa fans, is a business with television money in global competition and every throw of a tennis ball is a gesture that is as dishonest as it is self-righteous.
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What you, the SkyWowDaznAmazonJoyn subscribers, are right about: The tennis ball throwers and their stadium sympathizers are in the minority, measured in terms of subscriptions. But they are very aware of it. Like any minority, the curve fans make themselves known louder than the majority considers appropriate and tolerable. The active and organized scene fears that it will be even more marginalized once investors have the say. English conditions with seats for premium customers, no moderately consuming standing-room ticket crowd, no banners against anything.
Anti-Blackstone banner from VfL Wolfsburg fans at Union Berlin on February 10, 2024
Quelle: picture alliance / nordphoto GmbH
Blackstone, one of the two interested investors, has now withdrawn from talks with the DFL. For their money, they would like a low-maintenance tennis audience. The fans in the stadium, on the other hand, would not only like such negotiations to be a little more democratic and transparent than with the DFL recently. They consider the 50+1 rule, according to which their clubs always remain their property, to be a German cultural heritage like Weimar Classicism and the right of way in public forests. They just don’t want to be driven out of their natural environment.
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