Violent Fan Protests: Will There Even Be a Repeat of the Investor Vote?

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For months, active fan scenes in Germany protested against the planned investor deal for the German Football League (DFL). Last weekend the protests reached a new level. The match was virtually stopped in both the top match in the second division between the Hamburg sports club and Hannover 96 and in the Bundesliga match between Union Berlin and VfL Wolfsburg on Saturday. In Berlin, both fan camps repeatedly threw tennis balls on the court, causing the players to temporarily retreat to the locker room and the first half to last almost half an hour longer. Double-digit overtime has been the rule rather than the exception in recent weeks. The threat of the match being abandoned through the stadium loudspeakers of the Alte Försterei in Berlin was just enough to prevent this.

Call to violence

What is new, however, are interruptions due to offensive banners. This is what happened on Friday evening in Hamburg: the fans in the guest sector shot banners against their own director Martin Kind (79) and the CEOs of the private equity companies “CVC” and “Blackstone”, which are traded as possible investors. The posters showed the men behind the visor – a clear call to violence. Through dialogue, club representatives were able to convince their own fans to remove the banners. The referee threatened to stop the match.

Will there be another vote?

Background: In December, a razor-thin two-thirds majority (24 votes) of the 36 clubs from the first and second Bundesliga voted in favor of the arrival of external investors. One dissenting vote could have doomed the proposal. This one vote could have come from Hannover boss Martin Kind. When the head of Management GmbH separated from the club, he most likely voted in favor of the entry of investors – contrary to the instructions of the parent club. Kind, for his part, simply points out that these were anonymous elections. However, Kind’s silence makes the accusations against him plausible, especially because twelve clubs publicly support their no vote or abstention. Assuming they are all telling the truth, Child could only have voted yes.

Now there are increasing calls for a new vote – especially from Hannover 96. The ongoing fan protests, the close voting results and the controversy surrounding Martin Kind are all contributing to some clubs wanting the vote to be repeated transparently. “If it cannot be guaranteed that a democratically arrived at voting result is correct, it must be discussed whether a new, transparent vote is necessary. I mean: Yes, it is necessary!”, Claus Vogt (54), chairman of VfB Stuttgart, wrote about X, even though the club itself had voted in favor of the investor’s submission.

Source : Blick