Football as a meeting place for everyone

Yesterday was a special day for me. Together with Celia ?a?i?, Markus Stenger and DFB President Fritz Keller, who were digitally connected, I took part in the Sports Committee of the German Bundestag in Berlin. There, we presented the concept for two projects that we expect a lot from.

Since I took over the position of Managing Director of DFB EURO GmbH, my team and I have not only focused on the flawless execution of EURO 2024. From the very beginning, we agreed that we wanted a "EURO for everyone", a major event that has a positive impact on the common good. I have already written about this on LinkedIn: "With EURO 2024 we have the opportunity to give our society a new "we-feeling". If we do everything right.".

In the meantime, we have thought a lot, had many conversations - and experienced a lot. The Corona crisis has a firm grip on the country. Many of the social problems that we have in mind have been deepened and exacerbated by the crisis.

I will name two:

1. While professional sport has found a way to maintain its standards in the corona crisis in an exemplary organized manner, amateur sport is slipping deeper and deeper into the crisis. However, the worlds of professionals and amateurs were already far apart even before the crisis - and this gap is constantly growing. So even in sport, society is now divided. The different social milieus hardly have anything to do with each other anymore. But when the countless employees of countless clubs can no longer do their voluntary work because there is a lack of volunteers at every corner, then our society loses something crucial: a sense of community. The social cohesion.

2. Major events are unpopular. The new digital technologies contribute not only to communication, but also to division. Dissatisfaction with politics and the media, but also with organized sports, is carried to extremes on social media. From there, doubts, dissatisfaction and hatred seep directly into society.

Soccer cannot remain neutral under these circumstances. For this reason, we presented two projects to the Sports Committee under the agenda item "Status of planning and development of preparations for hosting the 2024 UEFA European Football Championship", which we expect to be successful. 

The first project is a participation process. This process has a very clear goal: it is intended to help win people over to volunteer work. We plan to set up discussion groups throughout Germany and find where the problem lies, what is missing, how we can help. From these discussions, we want to develop ideas and projects together with the participants - and then implement them. The motto is: ‘Listen. Understand. Tackle.’

The second project is dedicated to amateur sports. It is called "Meeting place football" and is intended to strengthen the soccer base and thus the common good. We intend to identify the regional challenges faced by amateur clubs in all German states and derive specific solutions from these. These solutions are then to be made available to all other amateur clubs on a digital platform and thus provide profound help for self-assistance. In this way, we want to connect the soccer base step by step - and create solid added value for society as a whole.

We are optimistic that the Sports Committee will like our projects and will recommend them for an appropriate funding.

The meeting of the sports committee was not public. Why am I communicating our goals anyway? Because at the beginning of our work we promised full transparency in everything we plan and intend to do. As soon as decisions are made, I will announce them here.