the CVC investment fund failed, victory against the “foot TikTok” of German fans – Libération

Discussions between representatives of German professional football and this potential investor were stopped abruptly on Wednesday February 21. A success for the supporters, especially the ultras of the turns.

By throwing tennis balls onto the pitches, fans in German stadiums got what they wanted: that the leaders did not “sell the Bundesliga to investors”. All discussions with the Luxembourg private equity fund CVC, the last candidate still in the running, were stopped abruptly on Wednesday February 21. “We couldn’t hold on any longer,” explained Hans-Joachim Watzke, the president of the Deutsche Fussball Liga, the German Football League. “We no longer need to take any kind of vote. The whole process has failed,” he lamented.

The fans, especially the ultras in the corners, managed to disrupt practically every match of Bundesliga 1 and 2 (in the first and second division). For months, they had been throwing tennis balls or chocolate coins onto the field, forcing the security services to collect them with buckets and the referees to interrupt regularly the part.

For the fans, who have already made the leaders bend over holding the matches on Monday (an idea since abandoned), it is a great victory against “TikTok football”, as they say, where marketing is more important than the sport itself. “Football belongs to the clubs and their supporters and not to rich investors who want to get even richer. “It’s a great day for German football,” reacted the spokesperson for the “Our Turn” (Unsere Kurve) association, Thomas Kessen.

“The fans demonstrated with this victory that they will now be essential as interlocutors. The leaders will never be able to do anything behind their backs again,” analyzes the editor-in-chief of the football monthly 11 Freunde, Philipp Köster, before adding: “Now we will have to find something. money elsewhere so that the Bundesliga remains in the big leagues.”