German Football Ultras: Support & Power Dynamics

EAt the end of November 2025, Uli Hoeneß uttered sentences that spoke to the hearts of many football fans: “I love the Ultras. But others have to have the say,” demanded the honorary president of FC Bayern, who fundamentally assumes that the hard core of the German fan base has an expansive desire for power: “First and foremost, they (the Ultras) want to determine football themselves.” This Hoeneß view of things corresponds to the widespread mood among stadium goers. The support, choreographies and socio-political commitment of the ultras are often viewed positively. But many classic fans also accuse the Ultras of wanting to “determine” and considering their own subculture more important than the interests of other supporters. For example, it always causes anger that many spectators see little of the game, especially in away blocks, because the Ultras’ sea of ​​flags does not allow a view of the field.

In contrast to Hoeneß, many club representatives only express criticism of Ultras behind closed doors. Another aspect is also a thorn in their side: that representatives from the fan scene have recently been elected to committees in numerous German clubs. This is also the main reason for the recently heard call for club general meetings to take place hybrid or purely virtual in the future. At face-to-face events, the active fan scene often provides such strong contingents that election results are distorted. The argument goes that the influence of the fan scene could be reduced if the many thousands of members who live far away from the meeting place could also vote. Or they only joined the clubs because of the associated benefits and therefore have little interest in filling club positions.

This was probably the only reason why Hans-Joachim Watzke was named the new president of the e. V. was elected, with a meager 59 percent yes votes because the event was held in a hybrid format at short notice. Among those eligible to vote locally, Watzke, who is criticized, among other things, for BVB sponsorship by the arms company “Rheinmetall”, failed to secure a simple majority. Although only around one percent of BVB members took part in the hybrid meeting – but at least twice as many as in an analog meeting. On the other hand, political parties also usually choose their candidates at face-to-face meetings, without the accusation that the visitors to the local association meetings are trampling on the interests of the cardinals.

Michael Gabriel finds the view, which is not only represented by Hoeneß, that active fans should stay out of club politics absurd: “We can only be happy when fans, including Ultras, stand up for their clubs and get elected to honorary positions, which they have been doing for decades,” says the head of the Coordination Office for Fan Projects (KOS): “Many clubs have benefited from this democratic commitment.” In fact, there are numerous examples of this. Even today, graffiti, candles and commemorative pictures with the portrait of the long-time leader of the Hertha BSC Ultras, who died in 2024 at the age of 43, can still be found everywhere in Berlin: As president, Kay Bernstein not only ordered the club to be closer to the fans again, but above all to be more modest and economically solid, after his predecessors had squandered a three-digit million sum in Hertha’s “Big City Club” days.

In Jena, a striker who used to play for his arch-rival is banned from celebrating in front of his own fan curve

The influence of organized fans has also had a positive impact on the regional league team FSV Zwickau. After relegation from the third division, the fan scene saved the club from bankruptcy with a crowdfunding campaign, which the fan-friendly CFO André Beuchold presented with the lead singer of the Ultras. It brought in more than 500,000 euros. In the current “Sportschau” documentary “Ultras or management – ​​who is in charge?” Zwickau Mayor Constance Arndt basically praises the seriousness of the club, which has been shaped by fans. The FSV is now working “very professionally”. “The work is carried out commercially and no ideas are expressed that cannot be financed.”

In Hamburg, too, neither HSV, whose president Henrik Köhncke comes from the ultra scene, nor FC St. Pauli, where, in addition to President Oke Göttlich, many other committee members are socialized to standing room, are spending money more lavishly than before. Perhaps fans, a surprising number of whom work in finance, are more responsible with money because their club loyalty is not measured by employment contracts.

But that is exactly what can cause parochialism and scene-cheating to take on a life of its own elsewhere. For years it has been noticeable how difficult it is for those responsible at Eintracht Frankfurt in particular to clearly criticize various violent actions from their powerful ultras. And at the regional league team FC Carl Zeiss Jena, an open dispute has been raging between the city and the club for months, in which the ultra scene plays a very active role. The dispute is only ostensibly about 50 stadium bans issued by Jena’s security mayor Benjamin Koppe. In an ARD documentary, Koppe even described “the influence of the Ultras” as “threatening the existence” of the traditional club from Thuringia. Since then, when he walks through his university town, he sees graffiti that insults him as an “enemy of Jena football”.

All Zeiss fans agree that Jena striker Kay Seidemann, who came from arch rivals Rot-Weiß Erfurt and once insulted his current employer in a video, was well advised to apologize for it. Nevertheless, Jena’s Ultras have forbidden him from celebrating with his teammates in their fan curve after victories for a year and a half. Not everyone in other stadium areas understands this rigid attitude. It seemed grotesque that managing director Patrick Widera – who has no support for fan socialization – even issued instructions forbidding the player from walking in the direction of his own fans after the final whistle. It’s no wonder that, not only in Jena, many observers consider cowardly and conflict-averse officials to be the bigger problem than the few ultras in the management levels who absolutize their scene rules.

However, Michael Gabriel also believes that this is exactly a danger: “Representatives of the ultra scene face a special challenge,” says the KOS spokesman: “In order to be able to act credibly and successfully in the interests of the club, they have to subordinate their identity as ultras to the club’s interests.”