Against Modern Football

From the Südkurve München:

GEGEN DEN MODERNEN FUßBALL

We wrote this slogan, borrowed from the Italian original, in 2004 on one of our flags, to bring to light our dissent with commercialization of football, which has increasingly lost every measure.

We would like to emphasize in advance that we in no way stand fundamentally against every form of professionalization and commercialization of football and that it is clear to us that we cannot undo what has been done.  This development began shortly after the development of football as a mass-phenomena and is therefore inseparable from it.  That is simply based in the economic side of football, which is a very easily sold product, and it cannot be viewed separately from the existing economic system.

Still, we eye the current development with an increasingly fast spinning spiral of higher, faster, larger transfer fees, player payrolls, TV-deals, and advertisements critically.  We regret that matchdays have been recast as events and have been fragmented to match the interests of TV-broadcasters.  We don’t feel much enchantment for a league where teams with history and a strong fanbase are suppressed from those without, the so-called plastic clubs (even though we know that this lays partially at fault of the self-inflicted mismanagement of traditional clubs).  We lose interest in a football that should be “predictable” and therefore becomes boring.  We do not want to have any similarities to the top-clubs in Europe who have long since lost every ability to see the costs of the Bundesliga’s scissors spreading continually wider apart.  A commercialization in the extreme form which we’re currently experiencing drives into a wall over a rather short distance than a long one.  But it doesn’t just drive business groups and ventures against the wall, rather football as a social phenomena.  The football which we live on an emotional level in stadiums and fan sections.  The football which we identify with through colors, successes and defeats, jerseys, anecdotes, and history.

RedBull’s team, which sought out the base town of Leipzig as a strategic consideration, is currently the tip of the iceberg of this development for us, because this team solely and exclusively exists to advertise an energy drink.  This team has no club with history and a grown fanbase behind it.  Both are central elements for us of the emotional side of football in the professional leagues.

Besides, we find it wrong to dismiss RedBull without making it clear that this construct on the economic level simply pushes the boundaries of the sport’s rules which all professional clubs follow.

We also have to recall the following -- that as fans, we are also a part of the whole which follows the sport’s rules and keeps the wheel turning.  Every time we buy tickets and spread an atmosphere out of a fan section, we become a part of the product.  Even for critical fans, this naturally presents a contradiction which makes the critique of commercialization a balancing act.

Still, the match against RedBull’s team is an opportunity for us to say that we reject this advertising construct which has stepped into the emotional side of football.  We also reject the relevant ways in which those responsible in our own club are working towards this current development in professional football altogether.  We wish for a football in which the importance for fans and the identification to clubs with history takes a central role.  We wish for a future for this football, because its emotional side plays a large role in our lives.  Because of that, we are hanging this particular flag which is older than our opponent on our fence during this match…

AGAINST MODERN FOOTBALL