The German Football League (DFL) and the state of Bremen will meet in court for the last time on Thursday (April 25, 2024): After twelve years of disputes and legal battles through the courts, the Federal Constitutional Court should draw a line under the controversy surrounding the assumption of the additional costs for Set police operations in high-risk games.
It is the DFL’s last card: the constitutional complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court. After twelve years, everyone involved is finally hoping for legal certainty through the oral hearing in Karlsruhe. With an “issue of fundamental importance,” as Bremen’s Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer said in an interview with Sportschau, we now have “the chance for a new beginning.”
The DFL’s constitutional complaint is directed against a ruling by the Federal Administrative Court from March 2019, according to which the federal states are generally allowed to charge the DFL, as the organizer of the first and second Bundesliga, for the additional costs for police operations in high-risk games.
So far it’s about three million euros
The state of Bremen had been demanding corresponding fees since 2015, a derby against Hamburger SV. The DFL considers these fee notices to be unlawful. The main argument: the state alone is responsible for security and order. When asked, the DFL said nothing had changed in this opinion.
So far it’s about three million euros for nine decisions from Bremen, of which the DFL has paid 1.952 million, subject to the decision in Karlsruhe. In some cases, invoices have not yet been written – because the games have not yet been completely accounted for. On average, around 334,000 euros are incurred per high-risk game.
Tendencies already from the negotiation?
There will be no verdict on Thursday in Karlsruhe. It would take months to be formulated, says Christian Pestalozza, professor emeritus of constitutional and administrative law: “The justification will run to a few dozen pages, which will take time.”
But it is possible that a trend can already be discerned from the negotiation, according to the renowned legal scholar. First of all, it’s about the admissibility of the constitutional complaint, the merits and also the ability to charge and the amount of the fee: “There will be deep insights.”
Pestalozza believes that the Constitutional Court will generally decide in Bremen’s favor. “I don’t think the Bremen regulation is particularly successful. The Federal Constitutional Court could want to formulate some points more precisely,” says Pestalozza. Some things, such as the amount of the fees, are “too vague. But the basic idea is completely correct. The state cannot be responsible for these additional costs.”
Mäurer: Arrogance and arrogance at the DFL
Pestalozza even goes one step further: According to the legal scholar, he considers the fact that many interior ministries waited for years for the subsequent decision of the guardians of the Basic Law instead of implementing the judgment of the Federal Administrative Court to be “irresponsible, downright cowardly.” “Funds have been lost over the years.”
It would have been better if the states had formulated their own laws based on four instances in which the DFL lost each time – and, in case of doubt, just paid them back, says Pestalozza. Only in Bremen, the smallest federal state, heavily indebted and cash-strapped, does a fee schedule regulate the additional costs for high-risk games.
The DFL was playing for time with the long legal dispute, says Bremen’s Interior Senator Mäurer. The league didn’t want to accept their defeat: “It couldn’t be surpassed in terms of arrogance and arrogance.” Mäurer also found hardly any bad actors in politics. “As the legal questions are clarified, the political environment will also change,” hopes Mäurer.
Support from Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate, which is also governed by the SPD, had announced in recent years that it would also create a fee schedule. However, this was not enforced in view of the constitutional complaint. The interior ministries in Saarland, Thuringia and Hamburg now also repeatedly express their sympathy for the Bremen Way.
Recently, fan riots had apparently triggered a rethink in Lower Saxony. At the derby between Hannover 96 and Eintracht Braunschweig in November 2023, with over 2,000 police officers, injured emergency services, pyrotechnics and massive damage to property, Interior Minister Daniela Behrens said that all of this “cannot be achieved in the long term without our involvement the clubs have to provide reimbursement of costs”.
The German Police Union (DPolG) and the Taxpayers’ Association jumped to her side. And the conference of all auditors had already voted in 2021 that football should pay for high-risk games in the first and second Bundesliga – with over 1,000 police officers instead of the usual 250 to 350. The police designate games as high-risk games 60 to 120 times per season.
NRW and Bavaria continue to reject it
However, there has always been resistance from North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria to professional football’s participation in the additional costs for operations surrounding these games. Mäurer speculates that the power of football clubs has always been evident here by putting pressure on politicians.
When asked by Sportschau, the interior ministries in Düsseldorf and Munich did not comment on whether the powerful clubs had actually exerted their influence. NRW emphasizes that with a view to implementing the Federal Administrative Court’s ruling, they have “weighed up the opportunities and risks” and have come to the conclusion that a path like the one in Bremen is “fundamentally not suitable” for “countering violence at football games”.
The Bremen initiative continues to receive no support from Bavaria either: they are waiting for the decision in Karlsruhe, but the “fundamental attitude” is not to send any cost notices: “Maintaining public safety and order is and remains the core task of the state. Economic “Considerations are not the focus here,” explains the Bavarian Interior Ministry.
Criticism of the security guidelines of the DFB and DFL
It would make more sense if the clubs themselves ensured “more security in the stadiums”: In particular, they would have to distance themselves more clearly from violent criminals and exclude them permanently. “Then less police would be necessary.”
This corresponds to a resolution of the sports ministers’ conference on April 18 in Saarbrücken on the topic of “violence in football stadiums”. It states that the previous preventive structures of the German Football Association (DFB) and DFL are not sufficient. Existing security guidelines must be “reviewed overall for their practical implementation and effectiveness”. The sports ministers of all countries therefore called for a top-level discussion with the DFB, DFL and all interior ministers.
DFB President as mediator
Mäurer was attacked by many football officials for his stubbornness for years. “That was the deepest ice age we had in relation to the DFB and DFL,” says Mäurer. Because of the dispute over police costs for high-risk games in the Bundesliga, the national team did not play in Bremen for a long time. “But this phase is over. Reason has made progress there.”
However, there have been no direct discussions with the DFL, which is also waiting for the outcome of the proceedings. But Mäurer found a good connection with Bernd Neuendorf. The DFB President had signaled that he would use his influence on the DFL in order to find a solution after the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision. “In this respect, our doors are open. It feels like we are moving towards each other rather than against each other,” says Mäurer: “I was never a supporter of this whole fee-legal regulation – but we were blocked from all other avenues.”
Mäurer’s argument was always: The DFL earns a lot of money and the fees wouldn’t hurt it with annual sales of over four billion euros. Overall, Mäurer emphasized once again, it was only a matter of 20 to 30 million euros per season, with which the DFL had to contribute to police costs. His proposal, which he wants to push forward with the other interior ministers after his victory in Karlsruhe: a fund that the DFL will equip with this amount every year. Depending on the number of high-risk games, the federal states should be compensated on a percentage basis.