What is the Bundesliga’s plan to bring an outside investor on board all about?
On December 11, 2023, the 36 clubs of the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 decided to allow an investor to buy into the German Football League (DFL). As the leagues’ governing body, the DFL is responsible for organization and marketing. However, the two-thirds majority vote required to adopt the plan was wafer thin – with 24 clubs voting in favor. One fewer vote in favor would have killed the plan – as happened in May 2023 when a similar vote failed to produce a two-thirds majority.
The DFL plan is for it to cede a maximum of 8% of the proceeds from licensing rights to an investor for a period of 20 years. This primarily involves revenue from media rights for the first and second divisions. The price to the investor: around €1 billion ($1.08 billion). Most of the money would be used to fund DFL projects, such as the expansion of its streaming services. Who this investor will be is to be decided by the end of March. Two hopefuls are still in the running: the US investment company Blackstone and the Luxembourg-based financial company CVC.
Why are the fan protests continuing?
On the one hand, the fan organizations are strictly opposed to the entry of investors. They see this as the beginning of the end of German football’s 50+1 rule, which prevents an outside investor from securing a majority of votes in a club. 50% plus one share must always remain in the hands of the club’s members.
Secondly, the fan organizations doubt that everything went according to plan during the DFL vote in December. They suspect that Martin Kind, the managing director of second-division club Hannover 96, voted in favor of the investor entry even though the club had asked him to vote against it. He was a particular target of protests during Hannover’s match in Hamburg on Friday, with some fans holding up a banner showing an image of his face in crosshairs. The entrepreneur has been financially involved with Hannover 96 since 1997 and has been one of the fiercest critics of the 50+1 rule for years. He has declined to reveal which way he actually voted.
What form have the protests been taking?
For several matchdays, some ultra groups have refrained from the usual loud support for their teams in the first few minutes of games. They have also thrown masses of objects onto the pitch: hundreds of chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil, plastic balls or tennis balls. Matches have usually been interrupted for several minutes while the objects were cleared from the pitch. Saturday night’s top-of-the-table clash between Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich was no exception.
Earlier in the day, the match between Union Berlin and Wolfsburg was interrupted for a total of more than half an hour before the PA announcer gave a “final warning,” saying that if a single tennis ball were again hurled from the stands, the referee would call the game off. The first half concluded with 21 minutes of time added on.
How hardened are the fronts?
The DFL sees no reason to reverse the decision made in December. “There is no ‘sell-out,’ no loss of control and no departure from 50+1 – and therefore no reason for horror scenarios,” the DFL stated on Thursday (February 8). It added that while the fans had the right to dissent, the protests of recent weeks were “not in the spirit of soccer and fair play.”
The DFL has invited the fan organizations to further discuss the issue, but this was quickly rejected. “The longer the protests are ignored, the more united we will stand up for a new vote,” an alliance of five fan groups including Unsere Kurve (“our curve”) said in a joint statement posted via social media.
How are the clubs positioning themselves?
In view of the many and long interruptions to matches, the clubs are slowly but surely losing patience. Claus Vogt, who, as president of Bundesliga club Stuttgart, said he had voted in favor of investors coming on board in December, recently called for the vote to be repeated.
“This would be a first step that also takes the interests of the fans seriously and can calm the situation in the stadiums,” said Vogt. Around a handful of clubs, including first division club Union Berlin and second division clubs Hertha BSC and Hannover 96, supported the Stuttgart club boss’s proposal.
However, on Saturday, Eintracht Frankfurt CEO Axel Hellmann reiterated the DFL’s refusal to repeat the vote.
“Because this resolution has come into legal force, we can’t simply say that we will vote again,” he told Welt TV.
“A new vote would be open to legal action from all the other clubs involved,” added Hellmann, who is also a member of the DFL’s executive committee.
