Saturday June 12th 2021
DFB is missing money for Lufthansa?
National team travels with dumping airline
Lufthansa has to save money because of the corona pandemic. This has direct consequences for the German national soccer team. She is looking for alternative transport options in Lithuania. Trade unions criticize “social dumping”.
The German national soccer team will forego the services of Lufthansa at the European championship, which the team traditionally flew to the games in the past. Instead, the German Football Association (DFB) trusts, as the “Spiegel” reports, on the little-known in this country Charter flight provider Klasjet from Lithuania. Compared to other European countries, however, it should pay particularly low wages.
“Instead of relying on social dumping, the DFB, which is not exactly starving to death, could have made a small contribution to getting people out of short-time work,” criticized a spokesman for the Verdi union in “Spiegel”. “We have enough airlines in Germany that specialize in the transport of teams, so you really don’t have to go to Lithuania.”
Up until now, Lufthansa had assumed the costs of transporting the national team as part of a sponsorship agreement. Due to the corona pandemic and the billion dollar rescue by the federal government, the airline has to save. “Due to the crisis, Lufthansa has reduced its marketing and advertising measures for the time being,” explains a company spokeswoman in the report. Now the DFB would have to pay for the services and have therefore “opted for a charter offer outside the Lufthansa Group”.
The three preliminary round matches of the German team will all take place in Munich. They can be reached from the base camp near Nuremberg with the team bus from sponsor Volkswagen. In the knockout round, depending on the results in the group stage, matches in London, Bucharest, Seville or Budapest would be possible. Later trips to Rome, Baku or Saint Petersburg could be planned. The semifinals and finals of the European Championship will take place in London.
540 euros a month?
The DFB is not the only football association that relies on the services of Klasjet. The international transport union ETF recently had the business model of the low-cost provider in one open letter criticized to the Belgian federation. “It is exploiting the European internal market and its employees by paying its cabin crew between 540 and 1300 euros per month,” the letter said.
After many scandalous years with raids and back taxes in the millions, the German association does not seem to be in good financial shape. The national players do not have to fear compromises at the European Championships: If they win the European Championship, each of the 26 players in the squad of national coach Joachim Löw will receive a record bonus of 400,000 euros.
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