Out of the Box III: Bring people back to the campfire!

B42

22.10.2021 Reading time: 3 min

Football is still for present-day Germany what the campfire was in early tribal societies: people come together in front of the screen or on the football pitch to watch or play football together, exchanging ideas and developing a sense of belonging. Some "stories" listened to around the football campfire burn deeply into the memory - most people in Germany can immediately and clearly recall the images of Mario Götze's game winning goal at the 2014 World Cup. 

But while these images and the accompanying commentary ("Make it! ...") could only be followed on ARD back then, the 2022 Winter World Cup in Qatar will also be broadcast on pay TV in competition with the public broadcasters: Magenta TV will show all 64 matches of the tournament live, 16 of them even exclusively. Accordingly, people in Germany will perhaps associate two different commentaries with a possible World Cup winning goal by the national team.  

This is one example of the commercialization of football, which is making it increasingly difficult for football to fulfill its campfire function. The "Super League", which has failed for the time being, should also be mentioned in this context, as it would complete the transformation of football clubs into "global brands" and away from regional objects of identification.  

Many people in Germany are protesting these developments – and turning away from the campfire: according to a survey published in November by the voting app "FanQ," which polled 4190 German fans, around one-third said that interest in professional football had declined during the Corona pandemic. Around 34 percent also said they were less interested in going to the stadium - so the fact that many Bundesliga games in the first half of the season were not sold out, despite severely limited capacity at times, seems a logical consequence. 

People in Germany are not only losing interest in professional football, but also in playing in the amateur sector themself: according to current DFB membership statistics, the number of active players fell from 2.25 million in the 2016/17 season to 1.8 million in the 2020/21 season. Over the same period, the number of youth players aged 14 and under plummeted from 906,542 to 735,822, and for 15- to 18-year-olds from 275,541 to 215,221.  

If these trends are to be reversed and more people are to gather in front of the football campfire again, something must change in many places.  

First, the DFB must find its way out of its crisis. The football governing body must use the upcoming presidential election as an opportunity to win back the trust of fans, amateur officials and players – for example, by limiting the term of office of the next president and making the election more democratic and transparent. Berlin amateur representative Gerd Thomas has floated the idea of a primary election in which all football players aged 16 or 18 and older from the roughly 25,000 clubs would participate. The renegotiation of the basic contract between the DFB and the DFL is also an opportunity: the aim is to shape the contract in such a way that, in the end, more money flows to the amateurs.  

The DFL and professional clubs also have an obligation: the word "humility" should not just be used for PR purposes, but as an actual maxim for action. This also means that clubs should view their fans less as a source of revenue and more again as self-determined individuals who need to be involved. Those who have to get subscriptions to three pay TV stations in order to see all the live games of their heart's club, those who have the impression that a critical discussion of a sponsorship deal is being suppressed, will draw consequences - consequences that will certainly not help to increase the popularity of football.  

Football still has the power to promote social cohesion and create collective identities. This potential must not go unused in an increasingly fragmented and individualized society. Time to bring people back to the campfire! 

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Tim Frohwein, born in 1983, is a sociologist and has been dealing with amateur football as a researcher and journalist for many years.

He teaches at Munich University of Applied Sciences, is a member of the editorial team at Zeitspiel magazine and organizes the Mikrokosmos Amateurfußball series of events.

He has been playing in the men's teams of FC Dreistern München for almost twenty years.

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