Football only with players in front of empty stands? It was there during the height of the coronavirus pandemic and didn’t please anyone. It is the fans who create the mass phenomenon and thus bring the business billions in sales. The anger of Fürth coach Zorniger over the protests against the DFL shows how short-sighted the thinking is.
“I find it unspeakable when it is repeatedly suggested that the fans are the heart of the game. The only group without whom you cannot play a game are the footballers themselves,” says Alexander Zorniger, the coach of the second division team Greuther Fürth at Sky. “The fans are the soul of the game, without a doubt. But they are not the heart of the game.” They are sentences right into the heart of the fan’s soul. They are sentences that make clear a short-sighted attitude. They are sentences that are lyrical and poetic, but offer cause for discussion.
Because is it really the case that only footballers are needed for football? Sure, without the players the sport – football – wouldn’t exist. They are absolutely necessary to start the business. However, in order to turn this into a billion-dollar business, people who are interested in it are relevant. Many people. Ultimately, it’s like everywhere else in business: if no one is interested in a business idea, the business is doomed to failure.
Let’s stick with Zorniger’s lyrical style: If the footballers are the heart, someone has to make it beat. Who is responsible for this? It’s the fans. They ensure sales in the business, and their attention is used by sponsors who pump a lot of money into the system. If they all suddenly left, the bubble would burst. Football presenter Lena Cassel told Markus Lanz on ZDF during the week: “The fans have made football into the billion-dollar business that it is now. The fans have ensured that very, very many people, very, very much “We can make money with this football.”
Great shame during the pandemic
When spectators were not allowed into the stadiums during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, all sides suffered. Zorniger is right in his attribution when he describes the fans as the soul; they make up football as a whole. Their passion, their commitment – the fascination for the sport largely comes from the fact that it is a mass phenomenon. During the pandemic ban, it was too quiet in the stadium for the players; without a backdrop, some of the attractiveness is missing. The clubs had a loss in sales, even if spectator income of course only made up a smaller part of total sales. But the loss was enough, they even received Corona aid.
It was only a few years ago that everyone was complaining that the fans couldn’t be there. That without them football is nothing. Now that they are becoming inconvenient, they are no longer relevant.
Who owns football? This debate has never been more drastic than it is currently in the First and Second Bundesliga. The investor deal sought by the German Football League is dividing the DFL, the clubs and the fans. Hardly a game goes by without protests from the stands, without game interruptions forced by tennis balls, chocolate chips and, in Cologne, even remote-controlled cars. Of course the protest is annoying – that’s what it’s supposed to be. Without attention to your own concerns, there will be no reaction from the other side. The fans are not prepared to let their beloved sport go to ruin with their eyes open – at least that is their opinion about the investor entry.
Protest is not the joy of rioting
The fans, they take on a lot – too much – in Zorniger’s opinion. The interruptions in the game and the uncertainty as to whether it might be stopped are really annoying him. Just as the players would be disturbed by it, as he further underlines poetically: “The heart is currently experiencing acute cardiac arrhythmias because you are simply no longer focused. A non-professional athlete cannot imagine what effects this has, “If you keep starting and going down again and again. That’s not possible. It can’t go on like this.”
But what is at stake? The feel-good moment for the players and coaches, the outcome of a game or the big picture? “We don’t like going to the stadium at the weekend to throw tennis balls around and make a protest because we have nothing to do, but because the issue is important to us,” said Union fan Lorcan from the Ultra Association. Wuhlesyndikat” told the RBB. It’s not about the fun of the riot, it’s about a deal that is also controversial among the 36 clubs. Finding a solution that pleases all parties is probably an impossible task. A little investor doesn’t work. But the fact that the cosmos of professional football cannot exist without fans, that it is about more than just your own little world, is something everyone who works in the business – including Alexander Zorniger – should take to heart and let it work for their own peace of mind.