Zoff already before the cup final
SC Freiburg gives RB Leipzig the cold shoulder
05/02/2022 10:09 am
Before the DFB Cup final, SC Freiburg refused to share fan articles with opponent RB Leipzig. These are usually standard in highlight games. The club from Breisgau does not give any reasons, but an Instagram post from a fan magazine gives a clear indication.
SC Freiburg has no interest in common fan articles with RB Leipzig. The Bundesliga club has forbidden its opponent in the DFB Cup final to use the club logo. This was confirmed by a club spokesman without giving reasons. An Instagram post from a Freiburg online magazine suggests that the ban is related to the ownership structure of the Saxon football club. The final will take place on May 21st in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium. It would be the first victory in the DFB Cup for both Bundesliga clubs.
“In the final, the SCF consequently refused to share fan articles with the opponent,” it said in a posting on the Instagram page of nordtribüne.org, an online magazine for Freiburg fans: “In addition, the opponent was forbidden to use the coat of arms of our eV. Nothing in common with the construct.” The message that was so widespread was confirmed a little later by the club. RB Leipzig did not want to comment on the “Bild” request. Shared highlight game fan merchandise is usually common in football.
The Saxon Bundesliga club has been criticized since the takeover of the license from the then Oberliga club SSV Markranstädt by the Austrian marketing giant Red Bull led by billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz. The new foundation under the name “Rasenballsport Leipzig” proved to be successful. Within a few years, the club first made it into professional football and then soon into the Bundesliga.
The criticism of Leipzig
Since then, RB Leipzig has established itself among the national elite and is about to win its first title this season. In addition to the cup final on May 21, the people of Leipzig can also look forward to participating in the final of the UEFA Europa League in Seville just a few days beforehand. On Thursday, the Saxons could improve their 1-0 win in the semi-final first leg against Glasgow Rangers.
Leipzig has been criticized by opposing clubs for many reasons. The Saxons were once accused of only serving as a pretext for a marketing project and of strengthening the Red Bull beverage brand and of only being the “imitation” of a football club, as the Leipzig-critical football magazine put it “11 Friends” wrote in 2020. There is further criticism of the numerous transfers between the two RB offshoots Leipzig and Salzburg, which pretend not to be linked. UEFA confirmed this to both clubs. But residual doubts remain.
Recently, the billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz was also increasingly in field of view the critic moved. With his media brands “Servus TV”, which became a platform for corona deniers during the pandemic, and “Der Pragmaticus”, he shows a right-wing conservative attitude at best.
In Leipzig itself, the criticism is mostly reduced to the envy of football fans for the success of the club. Some media also support the club in this line of argument. “Despite all the passion, the transition should only slowly succeed in showing RB Leipzig a minimum of respect,” it said sports1 after Leipzig’s entry into the cup final. And Guido Schäfer, chief reporter of the Leipziger Volkszeitung, told the story BBC before the game against Glasgow Rangers that the club is now being given great recognition for its sporting performance in large parts of Germany, just not in Dortmund or Berlin.