Christian Wück could feel vindicated. With 60,000 spectators at Camp Nou the national team coach watched on Sunday as Bayern Munich’s Champions League exit at FC Barcelona (2:4) repeated a basic pattern of German women footballers: as already in the European Championship semi-final and in the Nations League finals, the Spanish women’s technical supremacy proved ultimately overwhelming. Overall, however, the Bundesliga clubs Bayern, VfL Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt performed respectably on the international stage and earned a fair number of points for UEFA’s five-year ranking.
To prevent the gap to the strong teams from widening, the Women’s Bundesliga, FBL e.V., has far-reaching plans. President Katharina Kiel wants to push ahead mid-June at the next members’ meeting of the league association with the next milestones toward independence. Similar to the men in 2000, the women want to detach themselves definitively from the German Football Association (DFB). For that a foundational agreement is needed. “Our draft contract is heading to the DFB this week,” Kiel told the trade magazine Kicker. “From the e.V. it must become a corporate entity. “The structure can only be filled with life once the foundational agreement is in place.”
Problem: dafür bedarf es der Zustimmung auf dem DFB-Bundestag, der regulär erst wieder für den Herbst 2027 angesetzt ist. Die 34-Jährige erkennt darin einen „Bremsklotz“, weshalb erst 2027/28 ein eigenständiger Betrieb zustande kommt. Zuvor ist jener Fernsehvertrag neu zu verhandeln, den der heutige DFB-Generalsekretär Holger Blask mit dem Rückenwind der Frauen-EM 2022 aufgesetzt hatte. Damals war der Jubel groß, dass sich zwölf Klubs jährlich rund fünf Millionen Euro teilen und alle Spiele bei zwei Streamingdiensten laufen.
Inzwischen erhofft sich die auf 14 Vereine erweiterte Liga deutlich mehr Geld. Erst einmal ist zu klären, wer die vom DFB in den Herbst verlegte Ausschreibung verantwortet. Die Direktorin von Eintracht Frankfurt nennt es eine Option, diesen Deal selbst zu verhandeln, „dafür brauchen und erwarten wir die Kooperation des DFB“. Wie groß aber ist die Kompromissbereitschaft bei einem Verband, der brüskiert wurde, als Klubbosse wie Jan Christian Dreesen (FC Bayern), Axel Hellmann (Frankfurt) oder Dirk Zingler (Union Berlin) das auf dem DFB-Bundestag von Präsident Bernd Neuendorf verkündete Joint Venture öffentlichkeitswirksam platzen ließen; zu einem Zeitpunkt Anfang Dezember, als gerade die gesamte DFB-Spitze im Flieger zur WM-Auslosung saß. Blask unterdrückte seinen Ärger nur mühsam.
A Patchwork Quilt of Kick-off Times
The managing director today says that he has done everything for a compromise. The DFB’s chief strategist appears skeptical whether the league chief Kiel correctly assesses the market. She would like to establish a women’s conference on Sundays. She dislikes the fragmented schedule. “We now have a huge patchwork of kickoff times. We will change that.” At her wish, Fridays would be played later, Mondays would no longer be played.
In order not to exclude Sky as a bidder with its second-division conference from 13:30, the Sunday kickoffs for the women’s Bundesliga could start no earlier than 15:30 — but then DAZN would be carrying the Sunday matches of the men’s Bundesliga.
Kiel reiterated that the clubs “will invest between 700 and 800 million euros in women’s football over the next eight years,” while the figure circulated by the DFB of 100 million euros would not be accurate because it would include “grants for the second division, refereeing and other costs.” There is, however, an end to the accusations at some point.
There is a need for quick effects—namely higher revenues—to stop the exodus of players. The transfer of national-team player Vivien Endemann from VfL Wolfsburg to Liverpool FC gives a hint that more leading players could soon follow to the Women’s Super League (WSL). Kiel is torn: as in men’s football, the money of the investors there would on one hand distort the competition, on the other hand there is “more boldness in implementing certain topics,” which for her implies: “We can learn a lot from the build-up of the WSL.”
