Vice European champions, 18 million TV viewers at the final, new stars in the Bundesliga: German women’s football is booming.
But a statement by EM heroine Alexandra Popp (31) makes you sit up and take notice. “We always talk about a VfL family,” she says with a view to her Wolfsburg club in the “Fe:male” podcast: “To put it harshly, but if it’s only outspoken and really blatant working together, we don’t do that either.”
Not an isolated case! It is often shocking how neglectfully women’s football departments are treated in the men’s Bundesliga clubs.
VfL Wolfsburg
With around eight million euros, the women’s champion has the largest budget and the full support of the owner Volkswagen. The car company currently even prefers to advertise with women than with the men who are in the bottom of the table.
Men’s boss Jörg Schmadtke (58) doesn’t care about women’s football. According to reports, he even openly appeals internally to the fact that men must always have priority in decisions. After all, his designated successor Marcel Schäfer (38) is a big fan of the VfL women.
FC Bayern
At FC Bayern, there is a lot of talk about the importance of women’s football, recently ex-boss Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (66) called for more investment from the big German clubs. According to BamS information, the budget agreed with the board members Hasan Salihamidzic (sport), Jan-Christian Dreesen (finance) and campus boss Jochen Sauer is 6 million euros.
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In addition, the bosses got their own major sponsors for the women. However: In contrast to the basketball department, neither players nor those responsible are often seen at women’s games. And the women would like to play in the Allianz Arena more often than before.
Borussia Dortmund
The BVB soccer players are financially self-sufficient – no wonder, they only play in the district league. But with every promotion, the team needs more money. That becomes a problem, because BVB boss Hans-Joachim Watzke (63) has long since made it clear internally: women must not cost anything!
Schalke 04
Arch-rivals Schalke have taken a different path. After the royal blue women were initially only allowed to play mass sports, boss Peter Knäbel (55) declared women’s football to be a top priority and set up his own management. The goal: professionalize women’s football at S04 and attack in the Bundesliga in the long term. They are currently playing in the regional league.
1. FC Cologne
When Christian Keller (43) became manager at 1. FC Köln and thus also took responsibility for the women, he was surprised at a game visit why a player had taped her name and number to a blank jersey. The answer: The player had forgotten her own jersey at home – because the Bundesliga soccer players still have to wash their jerseys themselves.
As the first official act, Keller donated a washing machine and dryer to the department, but intends to do even more in the future. Because the club does not offer targeted sponsorship, fan articles or supporting programs for home games for the FC women. The budget of around 1.5 million euros per year is far from enough for this.
Eintracht Frankfurt
Eintracht wants to defend at least its status as number three in German women’s football. Some things are going well: sports boss Markus Krösche (42) was personally at the European Championships in England and exchanges views with women’s trainer Niko Arnautis (42) and manager Siggi Dietrich (64) every two weeks. The medical department, the nutrition experts and athletics specialists of the professionals are closely networked with women’s football. Most recently, a psychologist was hired for the women and the budget (currently around 2.5 million euros) is to be increased.
But not everything is going well at Eintracht either. The training grounds at a municipal sports facility are bad. Now Krösche and Co. are working to ensure that women can train better, if possible even with men. The women also received support when moving to the big stadium for the Bundesliga opening game. The reward: a new viewer record (23,200).
Elsewhere this is not welcomed. In Wolfsburg, the women have to justify every move to the men’s stadium with a business plan…
