A dream … football, peace, joy
Photo: imago images / Sven Simon
My mood is in the basement. My social behavior has hit rock bottom. Winter break. The pain of the footballless time pounds me. Why am I tortured by taking breaks from playing? In many countries there are two seasons a year, and I am calling for the same for the FRG. After all, I dutifully pay taxes and the radio license fee. I don’t always park in the wrong place and never wave the national flag, it has to be rewarded!
What I don’t need are national teams. You burden the European idea. The more nationalities, the more poisonous the nationalism. In 1914 there were around twenty in Europe; today there are over fifty.
The European Cup of Nations was launched as the predecessor of the European Championship at the same time as the predecessor of the EU, the European Economic Community. Two nice attempts to motivate continually warring Europe to live together peacefully. Of course, European and World Cups cannot solve a political problem – but they can become a problem if, for example, the host is Qatar.
Historically, no network of nations has lasted long. Storm is brewing in Europe at the moment. The EU seems to be growing over its own head. 27 states (or rather dachshund breeders’ associations) are trying to push through their national agenda. Our top-heavy, remote and stinking boring European bureaucracy sets the neoliberal rules for this. Great Britain has left with a solemn goodbye, and every other Member State hosts a political party that would like to follow suit. The unconditional primacy of the nation surpasses the more gratifying notion of a cooperative give and take among equals. Several European countries are ruled by authoritarian, populist mini-trumps. Their nationalist politics are determined by anti-migration. This gives every football fan the power to hide behind a mask of angry outrage, particularly at the moment in Eastern Europe. If you look around at various nationalist demos in Europe, you will see outraged football fans everywhere who have outgrown the role of party patriots.
And the big issue of gender equality! Let’s stay here in the country: Which German football club is led by a woman today? How high are the premiums of the German national players compared to their male colleagues with the eagle on their chest? How many women have their pants on at the DFB? Is our football one of the last bastions of male self-realization?
The football institutions must not only think in dollar signs and accept nationalist extremism and other man-made wickedness with their eyes closed. I am in favor of the temporary suspension of national competitions (including the Olympic Games, of course). The story of the big tournaments is also a story of political atrocities and great power fantasies.
If an international or national association proves unable to respond to virulent political problems, it must be combated or reformed.
And what about the fans? When I first attended GDR league games in the mid-1970s, there wasn’t a single policeman in front of or in the stadium. In the middle of the 80s I experienced a similar situation in West Berlin. Back then, the crowd behaved. Today, large parts of the masses move into the football war as dachshund breeders with flags, thick pants and singing.
Still nothing is lost. Our goal: football with a good mood and a great atmosphere. Football is freedom and fun, football must not be a political plaything.
.
