The Virtual Bundesliga (VBL) celebrates its tenth anniversary this year: The VBL Open, part of the VBL competition, first started in 2012 in cooperation with the German Football League (DFL). To this day, it is the only EA SPORTS FIFA game directly integrated into competition of a professional football league. Now over 130,000 people from across Germany take part. All matches are played on the football simulation game FIFA 22 on the newest console generation, PlayStation 5 plus Xbox Series S/X.
The VBL Club Championship, the second competition in the VBL, is in its fourth season. Bayer 04, with its eSports team is one of the founders of this league. Participation in the VBL CC is open to all 36 German professional clubs and 26 teams from the top two football leagues have confirmed their participation this year. The only changes in composition are related to league status: The new second division clubs Hansa Rostock and FC Ingolstadt replace the relegated Würzburg Kickers and Eintracht Braunschweig.
"We very much welcome the commitment and the efforts of the DFL in the area of eSports and we are looking forward to being in the fourth year of the VBL Club Championship," explained Florian Dederichs, the head of eSports and internationalisation at Bayer 04. "With our new and deeper squad, we want to be more unpredictable for our opponents and build on the successful past seasons."
Fabian ‘B04_DUBZJE’ De Cae, Marc ‘MARC_LDW23’ Landwehr and Anna ‘B04_ANNA’ Klink are joined for the new VBL season by new signings Paul ‘B04_Paul’ Degner plus Furkan ‘FURKY’ Kayacik.
At the end of March next year, as part of the VBL Club Championship, the German club championship will be decided. In the VBL Grand Final at the start of June 2020 there will also be a champion of all participating individual players from the VBL Open and VBL CC competitions.
The final whistle of the current 2025/26 season marks the end of a unique partnership for Bayer 04 Leverkusen. After more than three decades of collaboration and highly eventful times, the Bundesliga football club and the private brewery Bitburger are going their separate ways.
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Around four months after their bitter exit in the DFB Pokal Round of 16, the Bayer 04 Women are once again away to Hamburger SV. On Monday night (18:00 CEST), the Werkself will not only be looking to pick up important points in the final phase of the Google Pixel Women's Bundesliga at the Volksparkstadion, but also to make amends for their defeat on penalties.
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A simple approach to sport with games, fun and a highlight at the end: Bayer 04 organised a very special training session for 40 participants aged between six and 27 in cooperation with the Football Association of the Middle Rhine (FVM). At the day of action for women and girls with disabilities at the Kurtekotten Performance Centre, many of the participants gained their first experience of football.
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On Saturday, 28 March, the lights will go out again at the BayArena from 20:30 pm to 21:30. As in previous years, Bayer 04 once again take part in the WWF Earth Hour campaign under the motto "We're switching off" as the club wants to set a collective example for more climate and environmental protection together with people, cities and companies around the world.
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