The fact that tennis balls, of all things, prevented a financial investor from entering German football gives the end of the planned billion-dollar deal by the German Football League (DFL), announced on Wednesday, a bizarre touch. In addition to tennis balls, it was also chocolate balls, bouncy balls and remote-controlled model cars that organized fans in the stadiums recently used to provoke game interruptions in order to protest against investors getting involved.
Now the realization may be gaining ground in the fan bars between Rostock and Munich: What power we fans have! When the next dark forces grab our football, do we just have to throw something again? However, anyone who assumes that the people in suits at the DFL headquarters gave in to the power of the curves or even made themselves open to blackmail is overlooking the fact that in the end it wasn’t a few rowdy football purists with tennis balls who caused the deal to collapse.
The deal no longer had a clear majority among the 36 DFL clubs
Among the 36 first and second division clubs themselves – which make up the DFL – the planned deal no longer had a clear majority. This, in turn, was less due to fundamental concerns than to the way the plans came about. The decisive yes vote in the vote at the end of last year may have come from Martin Kind, the managing director (and investor!) of the second division club Hannover 96 – even though his own club had instructed him to vote no. This in turn raised the question at the Federal Cartel Office as to how such a thing is possible. The famous 50+1 rule in German football is intended to ensure that decision-making authority lies with the elected club committees at all times – and not with investors. After years of negotiations, the cartel office had only just accepted this special German rule, and now this compromise could be in question again.
So the damage has already been done – not by a financial locust, but by a completely botched process. There was no alternative to pulling the ripcord now.