Whenever there is the greatest need, where no alternative appears possible, the football sector in this country – in the tradition of almost 60 years of professional football – knows no taboos and gets straight down to the nitty-gritty in an emergency. Here – how else could it be – it's all about money. How can we improve our revenue?
That was the case in the 1970/71 season when people turned their backs in desolation on professional football made in Germany and they stayed at home in droves to demonstrate after the incredible Bundesliga scandal, the darkest chapter in an otherwise mainly spotless success story. The football community only discovered solace and a new start in the lifeline of the home World Cup in 1974.
Now it's happened again. A pandemic casts a shadow over public and private life in the country. Football is played again, albeit for months – in the truest meaning of the word – as if controlled by an invisible hand. Matters are complicated by the league possibly being unable to attract part of the support, now lost due to an invidious virus, back to the stadiums. The general situation bodes – justified or not – little that is good. For good reason, German football looks, unsettled and envious, at the island of the flush motherland of football.
To avoid a disastrous imbalance, the new DFL boss Donata Hopfen recently explicitly failed to rule out the introduction of play-offs. A format like that, played in a "football week", could, on the one hand, bring a significant increase in funds for the qualified clubs in the additional championship round and, in the best case scenario, simultaneously interrupt the tiresome dominance of the perennial champions Bayern Munich.
Reactions were as expected in part. The sports journal ‘kicker’ immediately launched a survey of its readers. 36.9% we're happy with the suggestion. 63.1% were against it. A way of ascertaining the champions of Germany that could descend into a type of lottery? That can't be done with the tradition-conscious German fan.
Christian Streich, the wise man from Freiburg, declared "the fairest way is for the champions to be the ones who have the most points after 34 games." Of course, Uli Hoeneß also made his contribution: "A joke of an idea. The champions in the Bundesliga should be the best team after 34 matches and one that’s been through thick and thin with their team. It's only aimed against Bayern Munich. It's nothing to do with increasing excitement."
The proposal was rejected in the clearest possible way by Leverkusen sporting managing director Rudi Völler. When it's all about the basic values of his favourite sport, the former celebrated striker leaves no doubts about his qualities as a defender as he sweeps away all the fuss: "A completely wrong approach. I'm dead against it."
Völler believes a new rule like that would be submerged by the performance criteria in German football. An unacceptable idea for him. When the basic values of his favourite sport are endangered, the football expert does not see the funny side. And the whole thing is not made any better for the pro and sportsman Völler by the idea of fair play possibly being damaged by this approach.
The author of this little column, who has outed himself many times as a football romantic, shudders at this idea as it could end up seeing on calculable coincidence replace expertise and continuity.
With that in mind
Hermann Josef Weskamp
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