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Karl Heinz Rummenigge
Photo: Arne Dedert / dpa
"The future of football is female" - this sentence, already uttered in 1995 by former Fifa President Sepp Blatter, also contains a lot of truth for Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.
“At the moment there is only real growth potential in the girls’ and women’s sector,” said the long-time CEO of the German record champions FC Bayern Munich of the Funke media group: “We will have to change.
Football was a total macho sport.«
In England, where the women's European Championship caused a stir last summer, the enormous potential had long been recognized, Rummenigge warned: "Now the Premier League is a step ahead of us again.
All Premier League clubs also have a women's team, they have invested a lot of money.
England won the European Championship.« In the final of the European Championship, the hosts beat the German national team in front of more than 87,000 spectators at London's Wembley Stadium.
Rummenigge called on every German professional club to get more involved in women's football, also out of their own interest.
»I know that Borussia Dortmund is working its way up from the lower leagues.
A club like BVB has to get involved in the women's Bundesliga," said the 1980 European champion.
Rummenigge advocates spin-off of the women's Bundesliga
“We need the big names.
And we need independent management," said the 67-year-old, who again brought up a spin-off from the German Football Association (DFB): "The women's Bundesliga must be split off for marketing." In this regard, the DFB needs " too long for decisions,” criticized Rummenigge.
At the start of the current Bundesliga season, the game between Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayern Munich saw a record crowd of 23,200 fans.
In the run-up to the season, the DFB formulated ambitious goals for the next five years with the "FF27" program (Fast Forward 2027, that year the World Cup is to take place in Germany together with Belgium and the Netherlands).
Among other things, the media reach is to be doubled.
mfu/dpa/sid