Tightening the pitch in women’s soccer

The dispute between Wolfsburg and Bayern Munich over the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand has reached new dimensions.

In about a month’s time, German footballers would like to fly from Frankfurt to Sydney for the extremely grueling stint at the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand (from July 20 to August 20), but controversies and troubles define the run-up to the tournament. . After an unresolved row over television rights, the dispute over the loan of national players is now entering the next round: Ralf Kellermann, in his capacity as sporting director of eventual Champions League champions VfL Wolfsburg, has made serious allegations against Bayern Munich not being in time to cancel the World Cup. The first (from June 20 to 28).

This was noted with “amazement and incomprehension”. In an official statement on Wednesday, the Mittellandkanal club maker warned: “The fact that Bayern Munich is now unilaterally terminating an agreement reached unanimously and recorded in writing could harm the great ambitions of the DFB team in the World Cup.” It wouldn’t be helpful to progress together in German women’s football.

The fact that the 54-year-old has only come out of the cap now, when all the national players are on vacation, is of course a calculation: one didn’t want to cause any upsets ahead of the Champions League final against FC. Barcelona (2:3).

First test in Offenbach

Because of the final in Eindhoven, the insistence on sufficient renewal time for the opponent seems even more strange: the Munich team was able to recover a week earlier and did not have to play play-offs at the start of the next season to qualify for the first round. class again. In addition, Bayern’s five-man squad for the provisional World Cup squad of 28 is half the size of Wolfsburg’s bloc.

“Every day of the short preparation phase is important in order to grow a successful unit of players who will compete for titles during the season,” says Kellermann. “So last year’s success at the European Championships is due not only to the individual quality of the team, but above all to team spirit.” National goalkeeper Merle Froms (Wolfsburg) was the first to point out that joint preparation time can be too short to pull yourself together. Kellerman is firmly convinced that “this decision is not in the interest of the players involved.”

Lena Magull, Leah Schuller, Clara Ball, Sidney Lohmann, and Caroline Simon are yet to comment; They were so sorry by the national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg that they were sitting between all the benches. Combining the interests of the national team and loyalty to the employer is almost impossible in her case. The fact is that the first World Cup tournament in Herzogenaurach, which begins on June 20, has already turned into almost a worthless model, because the Bayern quintet arrives only a day before the test match on June 24 in Offenbach against World Cup newcomers Vietnam and Wolfsburg. The representation must remain. Basically, only the second cycle (July 1-8) remains committed to common goals. This could be a frivolous task under time pressure, which also requires team psychologist Birgit Prinz.

Behind the scenes, Voss-Tecklenburg is particularly annoyed with Bayern’s sporting director Bianca Resch, who works as vice-president of UEFA’s club association, and who was there when all the financial and insurance issues were written down in March. Therefore, the DFB also spoke of “a breach of the word”. The Bavarian blockade with reference to the new agreements at club level is absurd because Chelsea’s Melanie Leopolds and Olympique Lyonnais’s Sara Dabritz have been given permission to prepare for the June 20 deadline with the runners-up in Europe. Kellermann criticizes Munich’s short-term thinking: “After all, national competitions also benefit from successful performances in the most important tournament in world football.”