As a possible new women’s world champion, England has taken over the former leadership role from Germany. The DFB ignored the warning signals for a long time, drew the wrong conclusions from the EM – and is now lagging behind in many areas.
By Frank Hellman, Sydney
Heike Ullrich still feels the jet lag. Feeling dead tired during the day and sometimes wide awake at night is not pleasant for the general secretary of the German Football Association (DFB), who has only been in Sydney for a few days. At the second women’s football conference of the world association Fifa, all member associations were finally invited to sound out the future after what was actually the biggest World Cup for women of all time in the ICC at Darling Harbour. This ninth edition has also set “new standards” for the long-serving DFB functionary Ullrich, who was the team manager at the first tournaments of German soccer players.