Hoppe is a representative of the commercialization of German football. He was trained in Hoffenheim youth team. After becoming a club investor, he only took eight years to bring the team from the fifth league to the Bundesliga.
Xinhua News Agency, Berlin, March 1 (Reporter Liu Wei) the phenomenon of collective abuse of ditemar hope by German fans has intensified recently in the Bundesliga arena, on February 29, Bayern’s game against Hoffenheim on the road escalated the conflict. Fans of Bayern played insulting slogans and shouted to abuse hope in unison, causing the game to be interrupted twice, the players of the last two teams protested on the green field and ended the game by passing each other.
This “farce” left a shameful page in the history of the Bundesliga, and the behavior of abusing hope has a long history. In the 23rd round of the Bundesliga match, Mensing Gladbach played a slogan of insulting hope in the match between the home court and Hoffenheim, which affected the process of the match.
Dortmund fans have also played slogans to abuse hope on the stadium many times before. The German Football Association has imposed penalties for this. Within three years, Dort fans are forbidden to watch the match in Hoffenheim. Dort will also bear the ticket loss of the visiting fan area caused by Hoffenheim’s home court.
Dort fans are extremely dissatisfied with this, because two years ago, the German Football Association announced that it would not make “collective punishment” for the fans “. According to the Ruhr news, the fans not only played slogans and abused hope in the match against Freiburg at home on 29th, but also aimed their anger at the German Football Association, criticizing the German Football Association for “betraying the promise”.
Who is Hoppe? Why is it controversial? He is a representative of the commercialization of German football. He was trained in Hoffenheim youth team. After becoming a club investor, he only took eight years to bring the team from the fifth league to the Bundesliga. According to German media reports, hope invested more than 0.25 billion euros in Hoffenheim club, including investing heavily to build a Rhine-Neka arena for the team that can accommodate more than 30000 people.
The hundreds of millions of rich businessmen who have made so many contributions to football not only did not exchange fans for love, but also incurred abuse. The reason should start from the most distinctive “50+1” principle of German professional football, many fan groups criticized hope for “ignoring football tradition”, which is also related to this principle.
The principle of “50+1” is simply that clubs and fans should have the right to decide in club affairs, and external commercial investment cannot occupy more than half of the shares, private investors cannot force their personal will in clubs.
Traditionally speaking, many teams in Germany are “non-commercial organizations” and operate by “membership system” or “association system. After the reform of German professional football in 1998, the club’s teams were allowed to adopt “shareholding system”, but it was stipulated that the club must occupy more than 50% of the shares in the joint stock company in order to protect the rights and interests of members and fans, preventing external capital from controlling the team is also an important reason for the low ticket price and high attendance rate of German professional football.
The principle of “50+1” is not monolithic, and there are also “exceptions” in Bundesliga, such as Leverkusen and Wolfsburg. These two teams belong to Bayer Group and Volkswagen Group respectively, and Leverkusen is even a team founded by Bayer Group employees. The German Football Association stipulates that if an enterprise continuously operates a club for more than 20 years, it can apply for the “50+1” principle immunity.
Hope is just another beneficiary of this regulation. In 1989, hope began to invest in Hoffenheim. In 2000, it expanded its investment, including building new stadiums and training centers. In 2015, Hope, who owned 96% of the shares, finally jumped out of the “50+1” principle, he has the right to make decisions in the same proportion. This makes it difficult for German fans who cherish the “tradition” to accept it, and it is also the main reason why the fans are “bold” in the stadium.
German football players are also constantly striving to change this principle, but they all end in failure. The Austrian RedBull Group, an investor of the Bundesliga “alternative team” Leipzig, avoided the restriction of the German Football Association on foreign investment by purchasing teams from low-level league matches, and upgraded to level 4 in 7 consecutive years by “burning money, the decision-making power is gathered by means of high membership fees, but the principle of” 50+1 “has not been overturned.
In 2018, the German Football Association held a meeting to discuss whether to reform the “50+1” principle, and most clubs still voted against it. For a long time in the past, the principle of “50+1” has helped the Bundesliga become one of the healthiest financial leagues in the world. At the same time, it has limited the commercial investment of German professional football to some extent, it has affected the competitiveness and influence of the Bundesliga.
However, the values of despising Kingyuan football formed by German fans over the years are hard to change. Many fans will not be discouraged because of the team’s demotion or the successive low-level league matches. They support the team as usual, even oppose the team upgrade, because it will increase investment and may cause financial difficulties for the club. For example, Munich 1860 of the De C League, and even Essen of the fourth level league, although the level is not high, tens of thousands of fans still buy tickets to the scene to cheer.
The Love and backbone of German fans for the team “don’t marry a rich man, I will raise you” are admirable, but the bad habit of collective swearing cannot be indulged.