Offensive banners row puts German football in chaos

BERLIN: Games across Germany were interrupted and delayed over the weekend due to offensive banners, highlighting a growing rift between the game’s governing body and the sport’s passionate ultras.

Stadium announcers in Dortmund and Berlin threatened calling the games off unless the banners were removed, while Bayern Munich’s match at Hoffenheim finished in farcical scenes as the players from both sides kicked the ball to each other to wind the final 10 minutes off the clock. The interruptions are broadly symbolic of a fierce debate in German football between fans of traditional clubs and those of newer teams who have been bankrolled by investors and private owners.

The protests have targeted the German Football Association (DFB) and its decision to hand down a two-year ban to Dortmund fans from travelling to the club’s games against Hoffenheim, after the Dortmund fans held up offensive banners.

The move has however only served to call fans into action over what they see as "collective punishment". The fans won support from Cologne captain Jonas Hector after Saturday’s victory over Schalke, as he asked why should "20,000 people who have supported us for the entire 90 minutes be punished for the actions of a few?"

Much of the rancour has been directed at Hoffenheim benefactor Dietmar Hopp, who has been widely criticised by fans after circumventing the league’s fan-ownership laws in order to invest more than 350 million euros ($387 million) into the village club, bringing it into the first division in the process.