German soccer has a new controversy – over playing matches in the United States

As soon as a new matchday dawns, a new controversy arises in German football. And it concerns possible matches in the United States.

The German Football Association (DFL), which runs the Bundesliga, announced a partnership with Relevent Sports this week. The American media and entertainment group, founded by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, will help the association develop its commercial and broadcasting revenues in the country. The Bundesliga will open new offices in North, Central and South America and will launch a pre-season tournament in the region in the summer of 2025.

What’s controversial about that?

Pre-season tournaments and tours are a standard part of European football. Having strategic partners in profitable markets is sensible and ultimately a requirement to compete in the modern football landscape.

But these are all third-track issues in Germany — and even the remote prospect of playing regular matches outside the country is hugely sensitive. To understand why concerns are growing, it’s important to understand the dynamics of German football’s current position, its conservative nature and its fear of change.

The Bundesliga is struggling with a formidable deficit, most starkly illustrated in the United States. While the Premier League’s broadcast contract with NBC is worth $450m (£338m) a season, the Bundesliga’s equivalent deal with ESPN (which runs until 2026) is worth $30m. Relevent will help renegotiate that deal when it comes up for renewal.

But without the star power or wealth of the Premier League, or its roster of celebrity clubs, the Bundesliga’s growth is a challenge that requires creative solutions. Even more difficult, those solutions must be compatible with German football culture, which will always be susceptible to change — which is why this new relationship between the DFL and Relevent will be a source of contention this weekend.

The context for this is the indigenous distrust of commercialism and foreign investment. Professional football only began in (West) Germany in 1963, with the launch of the Bundesliga. Compared with England, where football has been professional since 1888, and the other major European leagues — Italy and Spain (1926) and France (1932) — German football’s relationship with wealth is not the same.

Even today there is still amateurism.

In 1998, the growth of TV money in European leagues forced an ideological compromise. In order to remain competitive on a continental scale, German clubs were allowed for the first time to separate their football divisions and run them as private companies, selling shares and listing them on the stock exchange if they wished. It was a major change.

Previously, officers were unpaid members and outside investment in clubs was impossible. But the move forward came with a condition—and a safeguard. Ultimate control of these new companies was to remain with the members. The original club was to retain 50 percent of the shares in the new PLC, plus 1. This is the “50+1 rule.”

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The provision enshrines fans as stakeholders in the game, protecting the atmosphere, regionality and low ticket prices that have all become Bundesliga hallmarks. However, because the regulations also discourage the kind of wholesale investment seen in England, the DFL and its members are forced to seek alternative solutions in their quest for competitive parity. And when those solutions come at the expense of fan influence, the backlash can be fierce.

Protests against the CVC deal in Stuttgart in March this year (Photo by Tom Weller/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Last season provided a pertinent example. In December 2023, the DFL’s 36 member clubs voted to sell eight percent of future broadcasting rights to CVC, a private equity firm, for 20 years in exchange for €1 billion (£840 million; $1.1 billion). The proceeds from the sale would have been used by the league and clubs for infrastructure improvements, the development of digital marketing tools and the funding of overseas tours aimed at — again — increasing foreign revenue.

The fans rejected it, disrupting matches by throwing tennis balls onto the court and maintaining weeks of well-organized (and sometimes imaginative) protest. The investor deal was seen by them as representative of the over-commercialization of the sport and a threat to their own agency. With a private equity firm as a partner for decades to come, whose interests would be prioritized? Who would lead the important conversations?

For many fans in Germany, the Premier League is a terrifying prospect. Sky-high ticket prices and rampant commercialism are one issue. The marketization of the sport is another. The greater fear, however, is the lack of influence that fans in England have over those clubs — and how little recourse they have against bad owners. A disgruntled Premier League fan can only scream into thin air. An unhappy member of a Bundesliga club can actually vote for change.

The DFL deal with Relevent is not the same as the investor deal. There is nothing being sold or traded. It will not elicit a reaction of any intensity — nor should it.

But German fans will be aware of the global conversation about hosting domestic league matches, and the recently settled lawsuit between Relevent and FIFA. In 2019, Relevent sued FIFA over the organization’s rules that prohibit hosting matches outside a league’s home country.

Bremen goalkeeper Michael Zetterer collects chocolate gold coins thrown onto the pitch in January (Marvin Ibo Guengoer – GES Sportfoto/Getty Images)

FIFA has since been dropped from the lawsuit after saying it is willing to review its policy, opening the door to the possibility of domestic soccer matches being played abroad. Relevent and La Liga have already said they want to bring a competitive match to the U.S. as soon as possible.

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In a Zoom conversation with The Athletics This week, Adam Crafton and Steffen Merkel, the co-director of the DFL, were asked about the possibility of German football following suit.

“I respect the La Liga approach, but it would be more difficult in Germany,” he said. “While I see the benefits from a marketing perspective, we have to focus on things that are realistic. And that’s my perspective right now – not competitive games, but rather bringing more clubs to the U.S. consistently for a season and focusing on that as a first step.”

Politically, it would be nearly impossible to stage a regular Bundesliga match outside of Germany. It couldn’t happen without a DFL vote, and since club officials are accountable to supporters, any club that voted to move matches away from their home region would be in for a civil war.

Christian Seifert, the previous general manager of the DFL, promised that there would “never, ever” be any matches abroad, during an event in Frankfurt in 2018.

Peer Naubert is Chief Marketing Officer of Bundesliga International and in 2023 he confirmed that all league matches would remain in Germany.

“The Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 matches and matchdays are so deeply rooted in our societies that it would be very difficult and hard to bring them to other markets,” he said. The Athletics.

“There have always been discussions about the Super Cup and that is perhaps something that this ‘never, never’ does not take so seriously.”

Bayer Leverkusen CEO Fernando Carro is in favour of exporting the Super Cup, the German equivalent of the Community Shield in English football.

“It would be an option to have it in the U.S. or another country,” he told ESPN at a club event in New York last week. “We have to try new things. This could be an example of that.”

Supporters will of course wonder what else this entails. As Merkel says, this is a “first step”. Today a pre-season tournament. Tomorrow the Super Cup. And then?

That may sound like a conclusion drawn from an innocent remark – an alarmist reaction even – but German football is generally pre-emptive with its protests and alert to any falling dominoes.

So there may not be any tennis balls on the court this weekend, but the DFL can count on the stands always watching.

(Top photo: Bernd Thissen/picture alliance via Getty Images)