What the fan scene has against Dietmar Hopp

At the weekend there are revolting campaigns against Dietmar Hopp from Hoffenheim in Bundesliga stadiums. The outrage is great, but the fans are not just the patrons.

This Bundesliga weekend there was abuse in several stadiums against the Hoffenheim football patron Dietmar Hopp. The fans of Borussia Dortmund, FC Bayern and 1. FC Köln, among others, had also expressed their aversion to Hopp with posters; it was an action that had been announced in advance.

Fan banners against Dietmar Hopp

While the games in Dortmund and Cologne were only interrupted but then continued, the outrage at the game of FC Bayern in Hoffenheim was limitless. Bayern fans once again called Dietmar Hopp a "son of a bitch" on a banner, after which referee Christian Dingert interrupted the game for the first time. To send the teams into the cabins at the second whistle. After a break of almost 20 minutes, the teams returned to the lawn, but only moved the ball back and forth demonstratively. It should be understood as a "sign" against the fan action. At the same time, Hopp and Bayern's CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge stood on the sidelines and demonstrated solidarity.

Dietmar Hopp in the sights of the fan scene

After the final whistle, Rummenigge spoke of the "ugly face of football", he was also deeply ashamed "for these chaots". Responsible people and media representatives even rolled over in superlatives as to what abysses of hatred would have opened up here. In the "double pass", Thomas Hellmer tried a historic match day that "will go down in football history, but not in a positive sense". DFB boss Fritz Keller spoke in the "Current Sports Studio" of "Chaots who have nothing to do with football", and against which action must be taken. It needed "a sign against hatred and envy in society".

Dietmar Hopp personifies the commercialization of football

Those who follow this wave of indignation might have the impression that this is a singular event against a single person. But on the one hand, it's not just about Hopp, and on the other hand, the escalation has a long history.

Dietmar Hopp, the billionaire entrepreneur from Heidelberg, who formed TSG Hoffenheim with his private assets from a village club, stands for many for the personalized commercialization of football. Since his club has played in the Bundesliga, he has been hostile because he symbolizes the counter-model of the "traditional football club with a heart".

However, the background of the fan action against Dietmar Hopp this weekend is the reintroduction of the collective penalty by the DFB, which was pronounced against the fans of Borussia Dortmund. Dortmund are excluded from two away games at TSG Hoffenheim because TSG patron Hopp was shown in the crosshairs in the Dortmund block in September 2018 - supplemented by a poster with the words "Criminal proceedings & house bans due to offensive chants? What's the shit you son of a bitch? ". The sentence was initially suspended, but after repeated abuse in December 2019, it was turned into an actual sentence.

Collective punishment is on suit Dietmar Hopp personified commercialization of football

Already in the game Borussia Mönchengladbach against TSG Hoffenheim last weekend the game was almost broken off. Dietmar Hopp was also shown there in the crosshairs, on banners had "sons insult a son of sons and are punished by sons of sons - abolish collective penalties!". This probably meant the fans from Dortmund, Dietmar Hopp and the DFB, but the reference was still the collective punishment, which was reintroduced by the "Dortmund judgment". In August 2017, the DFB had already announced, based on fan protests, that it wanted to forego collective punishment in the future.

Not only the collective punishment causes displeasure in the scene. Many people see that fan curves are monitored with directional microphones and monitored with high-resolution cameras as a criminalization of their football culture and as a demonstration of power by those who prefer to keep their seats in the bucket seats with the more paying spectators. Added to this is the criticism that the insult to a billionaire is reacted to when the game is abandoned, while racist failures generally have no consequences for the course of the game. Rather, anti-hopping actions would be equated with right-wing terrorism as in Hanau.

"Image" sets right terror in Hanau in one with "Hesse gegen Hopp"

For example, "Bild" journalist Alfred Draxler had with "Hanau und Hetze gegen Hopp! We have to draw taboo lines ”titled. And thus put both events on the same level. "Anyone who misuses the dead of Hanau to silence the fan curves shows more indolence than any crosshair," was a reaction from the fans of Borussia Dortmund. And as the fan organization ProFans currently reports, Hopp in the crosshairs should be understood as a “symbol against the collective punishment” and not just as a call to murder. After all, the patron's complaint resulted in the collective punishment.

Banner on the south stand for #Hopp and #Hanau. #bvbscf pic.twitter.com/vMt0BaGTL6

But how to deal with the hardened fronts? "One way to achieve peace would be if the DFB really abolished the collective penalty. Then the air would be out immediately, ”suggests the ProFans spokesman. Does the DFB agree?