Monday 17th May 2021
DFB, sport, women, problems
The female macho encrustation
A comment from David Needy
Ex-President Fritz Keller settles accounts with the DFB and calls for a fresh start. The association could use the chance to break open an encrusted system that rules worldwide. Does the DFB rely on women or does it continue with its macho cockfight?
There could be groundbreaking changes in the largest and most powerful national sports association in the world. Or is everything going on as always? “As announced, I am making my office as President available for a profound and necessary new beginning in the interests of the German Football Association,” said the outgoing DFB President Fritz Keller at noon. What is necessary is a new beginning, the breaking up of the encrusted macho system dominated by white, old men, in any case. But whether the football association is really making radical changes and sending a signal in the direction of equality remains questionable.
As he walked out the door, Keller said that none of this had anything to do with “proper association management” at the DFB. The association must change and “regain its credibility, confidence in its integrity and performance.” There would be too many “resistances and walls”. It is “far too often about personal sensitivities, internal power struggles, securing advantages and ‘working’ on one’s own image in public”.
These power and macho problems at the DFB are homemade. And they’re man-made. Because at the association, only the male gender has always controlled events. In a European and global comparison of women in the boardrooms of commercial enterprises, Germany is still at the bottom of the rankings – the DFB is in no way inferior and has shown, with few improvements since it was founded, that it also finds a male-dominated society in sport okay . To date, there is only one woman on the DFB Presidium, Hannelore Ratzeburg (out of 18 men). Her position is much more like that of an alibi woman because she cares about women’s football and equality.
Barriers to the path to equality
In the DFB Bundestag, which will soon elect the new president, almost exclusively the male gender sits. Men choose men. Clashes. Internal power struggles that destroy the inside of the association and do not let anyone in from the outside. Such structural problems are enormous barriers to the path to equality in sport. Women sometimes experience gender-based discrimination, but the majority of those present do not notice it – or do not want to have heard of it.
It is human (but not always beneficial) to surround yourself with people who affirm your own point of view. At the DFB that was the only way so far. On their path of narrow-mindedness and discriminatory constancy, the men in power were always a little afraid of the new. Before change. Before the female de-encrustation of the system with male perspectives and structures, which is accompanied by a loss of power. And so they have preferred to leave everything as it is for decades – for their own benefit, of course. Because the big association is setting a bad example, the situation at the grassroots level – despite the increasing participation of women and girls in sport – does not look much better. There is a lack of role models in management positions and decision-making bodies.
Sport, especially soccer, is traditionally a male area. Because false stereotypical images of femininity and masculinity persist in society, equality in sport makes very little progress. There, in particular, men are seen as stronger, more resilient and more competitive, while women are still mistakenly viewed as not as productive or as weak in decision-making. When it comes to positions with power and money, women are therefore left out in football. Likewise in the area of sporting leadership: not a single coach can be found in the top three men’s soccer leagues. Other countries and sports are already further along: Becky Hammon is assistant coach with the NBA team San Antonio Spurs, Michele A. Roberts is managing director of the sports union National Basketball Players Association, Jeanie Buss led the Los Angeles Lakers as the first owner to an NBA in 2020 Championship, Cynthia Marshall is the executive director of the Dallas Mavericks, the former club of Dirk Nowitzki.
Is the DFB seizing the obvious opportunity? With the election of a new, diverse management team, the association’s swampy swamp could finally be drained, drained and replanted. The decades of macho cockfighting could come to an end. The hermetic male system could be broken. The DFB management style of this system demonstrably no longer works and recently wore out five presidents in a few years. Time for a president and other women (and people of color) in the management team. That would not only be an important signal, it would also be conducive to the day-to-day work. “If the board of a sports club has a higher gender diversity, there are fewer problems in certain areas of the organization,” said Pamela Wicker, professor for sports management and sports sociology at Bielefeld University, recently ZDFsport.
Women’s quota at the DOSB
Ute Groth from Düsseldorf, who ran for the DFB leadership in 2019, Katja Kraus, former Bundesliga and national goalkeeper and active on the board of Hamburger SV between 2003 and 2011, and Nadine Keßler, world footballer from 2013 and head of women’s football at UEFA, would be competent, experienced and interesting candidates. Does the DFB dare to take necessary, contemporary and trend-setting steps? Or will it be done again, as already rumored, an old (Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Rudi Völler, or a combination of both) or a younger white man (Philipp Lahm) of the same encrusted system?
The German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) has shown how it works in recent years. In 2015, the association introduced a quota for women – for all committees. Today at the DOSB these are almost equally occupied. A look at the sports associations in Germany makes it clear that this is only a small highlight in terms of equality Proportion of women in management positions of the associations in total is only just under 20 percent.
Europe and the world are also only more progressive on the issue of gender equality in exceptional cases (NBA examples, see above). Despite all efforts towards more equality, sport is in some respects still in the Stone Age. 93 percent of the presidents in European sport and 78 percent of board members were male in 2020. Just eleven percent of the coaches at the 2016 Olympics in Rio were women. At the International Olympic Committee (IOC) only five out of 16 board members are women, at the World Athletics Association two out of eight.
The DFB now has the chance to set an example in the male-dominated sports world and to promote the elimination of false and discriminatory gender stereotypes. Just one woman at the top is not enough; more profound changes are needed in the association structures. It takes an open and honest debate about past mistakes and backward structures at the DFB. For this there would have to be training courses and programs on the subject of equality for employees. A breath of fresh air and greater awareness could slowly restore functionality to the DFB – and bring about imitators in other associations in Germany and around the world.
This is the only way to drain and replant the DFB back room swamp and restore the association’s credibility. And de-encrusting the macho system step by step.
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