Louis Klamroth makes several attempts and he also has the right guest sitting at the table. But the moderator is unsuccessful in his request for a few open words that would go a long way towards resolving the messy situation in the Bundesliga stadiums. Martin Kind, the managing director of Hannover 96, the man whose behavior is one of the central reasons for the tennis ball protests during this week’s Bundesliga games, is evasive. In the latest issue of “Hart aber Fair” entitled “Uprising of the fans: Are investors destroying football?” when asked several times about his voting habits, he says dry sentences like: “I don’t even want to take part in this discussion .”
Kind is under well-founded suspicion of having cast the deciding vote for a strategic partnership between the German Football League (DFL) and an investor from the private equity industry. Although his parent club gave him instructions to vote “no”. Many fans would see a “yes” vote as a breach of the 50+1 rule, which is intended to guarantee that the majority of votes in the clubs can never lie with sponsors or investors, but only with the members. But that is just one aspect of a highly complicated conflict that has so many facets that many people interested in football only partially understand it.
This becomes clear when at some point in the program Klamroth shows a clip in which he speaks to spectators in front of the RB Leipzig stadium, who can do little more than present dangerous half-knowledge. This makes it clear how useful it is to do educational work on this winter’s big football dispute on the stage of a popular talk show. Meanwhile, there aren’t that many controversies this evening. Except with children, of course.
Former professional Markus Babbel is also there, and on the other side of the studio, which has been designed like an arena since the beginning of the year, are people who represent the fan side: Thomas Kessen, the spokesman for the “Our Curve” alliance, the journalists Mia Guethe from the magazine “11Freunde” and the SPD general secretary Kevin Kühnert in the Arminia Bielefeld T-shirt under the jacket.
Martin Kind in the crosshairs
Early in the show, a few fundamental questions are clarified, with a clip describing what the proposed deal with the investor CVC could look like. It’s also about Martin Kind’s face in the crosshairs on a banner in the corner of Hannover 96, about which he says: “I hardly notice it anymore, but that’s of course not acceptable.” Guethe also supports this form of protest From a fan’s point of view, it is counterproductive and says: “The more aggressive the imagery becomes, the more you feed the narrative that you can’t sit at the table with ultras and active fans, that they are chaotic, as many decision-makers in German football propagate. “
But more and more spectators, coaches and players have also recently become very annoyed by the actually peaceful tennis ball protest. Given the weather, the interruptions are “extremely dangerous” for the professionals, says Babbel. After the long breaks there was a risk of injuries. In addition, you reach a “point where influences on the game also take place”. It could “go so far that someone loses their job as a result.” An example of this could be seen on Sunday in Bochum, where FC Bayern lost track and the game after a long interruption, whereupon coach Tuchel’s dismissal became more likely.