Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Mega trouble over scraps of fabric
King Ceferin is not bothered at BVB
A throw-in from Stephan Uersfeld
UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin attends the Champions League game between BVB and Sporting Lisbon. He is almost bothered with a scrap of cloth: a banner against the planned reform of the royal classes. Everything is done to prevent these terrible images.
King Aleksander Ceferin held court and the subjects rebelled. That couldn’t be tolerated. Because dissatisfaction and oppositional behavior can lead to revolution, even to the abdication of the ruler. But he still has a job: He must ensure the survival of the Champions League, which is under attack by rebel clubs. Under all circumstances. Criticism cannot be tolerated.
So it happened on Tuesday in the Dortmund stadium. On the second match day of the premier class, the local BVB received the Portuguese representative Sporting Lisbon. Of all the games of the day, and despite the sheikh battle in Paris’s Prinzenpark, the game between the Qatari world team Paris St. Germain and the Abu Dhabi club Manchester City, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin chose that duel in Dortmund .
High up in the stands he showed up with Hans-Joachim Watzke, the managing director of Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA, to witness the hosts’ 1-0 victory there. But down on the south stand, some football conservatives who are slowly returning to the stadium after months of the pandemic dared to rebel.
The banner has to go
They showed a banner that had to be read as a critique of rule. That had even been approved by the host club and was similar to that at other games. “Stop the UCL reform. Football for millions of people and not billions of euros,” it said in English. Subversive scribbling. An attack on the king. That had to go. First from the fence and later from the stands where only a small piece of material was displayed: “Stop the UCL reform”.
Too much revolution. The king shouldn’t see it. In the circles of the revolutionaries, it was said that there was hectic activity under the stands, where even the digital eyes cannot reach. Anything to keep the king’s eyes clean. It didn’t work. The pictures had long since gone around the world. The message: In the fight with the rebel clubs, the king cannot rely on the support of the football conservatives, the fans who prefer to be the guardians of a declining culture.
They had already formulated monstrosities beforehand. They rejected the reform. Because it will bring more money and more planning security for a few clubs. Because it will further narrow the path to the premier class and because it will take the national leagues away, even more than they already are, to breathe.
UEFA under attack from all sides
“We fans want more excitement in the national leagues, not two- or three-tier societies. European games should remain highlights that we look forward to for weeks,” said influential groups from the environment of the Champions League permanent guest Borussia Dortmund and the only German world club Bavaria Munich formulated and thus turned against the future. A future that Aleksander Ceferin and his UEFA want to stand for. A future that seems to slip away from them under the Super League attack by the rebel clubs around Real Madrid, Juventus and Barcelona and the megalomaniac World Cup plans of the world association FIFA.
The battle for football, which has long since ceased to be a game, but a gigantic entertainment and money printing machine, continues. The fans shouldn’t get involved. But football without fans is nothing. The long months of the pandemic have also shown this. A look at the clubs’ coffers is enough. After a year and a half, there is ebb there.