Fan protests in Germany against investor deal threaten to overshadow Bundesliga action
DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) — Tennis balls, apples, chocolate coins. These are just some of the objects that German soccer fans hope will defeat a controversial investment deal.
Fans are throwing objects from the stands to halt games in order to show their unhappiness with the league's plan to sell a stake of future revenue to a private equity investor.
Delays to repeatedly clear objects off the field — sometimes adding up to 30 minutes or more over the course of a game — are common as fans test the league's reluctance to abandon a match.
This weekend's games in Germany could be a key battleground between executives and fans, who claimed a victory on Wednesday when prospective buyer Blackstone dropped out of the process, leaving only one candidate, CVC Capital Partners.
“That was exactly what we wanted to achieve,” Jost Peter, a leader of fan group Unsere Kurve, told the dpa news agency. “Our protests were successful."
This weekend, both title contenders are playing smaller clubs as leader Bayer Leverkusen heads to Heidenheim on Saturday and Bayern Munich visits Bochum on Sunday with coach Thomas Tuchel under pressure after back-to-back losses to Leverkusen and Lazio.
Without an obvious standout game to take the spotlight, the protests could get even more attention.
The league argues the proposed deal would bring in much-needed money up front to modernize the Bundesliga’s marketing and clubs’ infrastructure, and that an investor could bring in marketing expertise as well as money. An earlier version of the deal was voted down by clubs in May, when the protests were mostly limited to banners in the stands.
Since clubs narrowly voted in December to proceed with talks with two prospective buyers, protests have grown more persistent and disruptive. One second-division game last Friday saw fans attach to the goalposts thick metal bicycle locks and display a banner showing a club executive's face in crosshairs.
Saturday saw a delay of around eight minutes to the kickoff of the league's biggest game as Leverkusen beat Bayern 3-0. Another game, between Union Berlin and Wolfsburg, had repeated delays and finished around half an hour behind schedule.
Most fan groups want the deal scrapped entirely. As a first step, many are calling for the December vote to be re-run, this time with club executives' votes made public for accountability.
There's no sign the protest movement will calm down any time soon. The league wants to agree on a deal by the end of next month ahead of a planned auction of new TV rights for the 2025-26 season and beyond.
As the league's “strategic marketing partner,” CVC could get a maximum share of up to 8% of the league's commercial rights, including TV and league sponsorship income. The league says it would not allow an investor to decide on some key issues of concern to fans, such as kickoff times. Past fan protests forced the league to abandon unpopular Monday night games, the last of which was played in 2021.
As the league's March deadline approaches, attitudes are hardening on both sides. Fan representatives turned down an invitation last week to meet with league bosses. The invitation was “a fig leaf," several fan groups said in a joint statement, “because it doesn't contain any offer to negotiate.”
“We note the refusal of the invited fan representatives but regret it because readiness for dialogue is always the basis for democratic cooperation,” said Hans-Joachim Watzke, the Borussia Dortmund chief executive who also chairs the league supervisory board, and is a prominent backer of outside investment.
So far, all of the games have been played to the final whistle, even with big delays, after final warnings to fans. If the protests intensify further, it could test the league’s and referees’ resolve.
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