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Watzke on reform in the youth field: “Incredible”

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Children’s and youth football
“Soon we’ll be playing without the ball” – Watzke rails against reform in the youth sector

Soon with a square ball: BVB managing director Hans-Joachim Watzke

© David Indianlied / DPA

The youth reform in German football continues to spark discussions. On Wednesday evening, Hans-Joachim Watzke expressed caustic criticism – and that as DFB vice-president.

DFB Vice President Hans-Joachim Watzke sharply criticized the reforms planned by the German Football Association in the youth sector. “Incredible and incomprehensible to me,” said the 64-year-old, who is also head of the supervisory board of the German Football League and managing director of Borussia Dortmund, on Wednesday evening at the DUP Entrepreneur Day in Essen. Watzke announced a reform of the reform: “We just decided that.”

At the end of August, the DFB introduced Hannes Wolf as the new director responsible for youth development. The 42-year-old explained and defended the youth reform in detail. Most recently, the restructuring of the youth competitions and the abolition of the previous A and B junior federal leagues had been decided. The main point of the criticism is that it is supposedly no longer about winning and losing.

New forms of play from 2024

“If you never have the feeling of losing as a six, eight or nine-year-old, then you will never find the great strength to win,” said Watzke. “If we are afraid that an eight-year-old will be completely thrown off balance because he loses 5-0 with his team, then that also says a lot about German society.”

From 2024, new forms of play are to be established. In essence, these provide for smaller team sizes on smaller playing fields in certain age groups and replace the previous competitive offers as fixed formats. “There was also a discussion about not playing for goals anymore. We’ll soon be playing without the ball,” said Watzke. “Or we make it square so that it doesn’t run away from the slightly slower youngsters. I think that’s fundamentally the wrong approach.”

Hans-Joachim Watzke: We all have to be happy and peaceful

Watzke criticized that there are “many people in the DFB and in society as a whole who say: We need to have less pressure to perform and stress at work and rather have a little more home office. We all need to be happy and peaceful and we all need to get along well and on In the end we’ll see to it that we find someone else who will pay for the whole thing.” This also applies to youth football, said the official. “You shouldn’t underestimate that. And I think it’s completely wrong.”