Germany: An anarchist soccer team playing to win

Only once in the past 15 years did the team win enough matches to make it into the top division of German soccer, said Lars Wallrodt in Die Welt.

Lars Wallrodt

Die Welt

Germany’s most anarchic, leftist soccer club is trying to go big-league, said Lars Wallrodt. FC St. Pauli has always prided itself on being the soccer team of rebellion. Based in St. Pauli, the red-light district of Hamburg, the club draws its fan base from the far-left youth who live in the neighborhood’s squats. These are not your typical soccer hooligans. In St. Pauli’s decrepit stadium, “pirate flags flutter, symbolizing anarchy, and the air is thick with marijuana smoke.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

That the team is a perennial underdog only adds to its image as maverick. Only once in the past 15 years did the team win enough matches to make it into the top division of German soccer. Part of the problem was money. The stadium had no box seats to sell to businesses because such features “were seen as too bourgeois.”

But a few years ago, new owner Corny Littmann took over, and he’s been pouring money into the club, building a new stadium and boosting ad revenue. Littmann can get away with these changes because he has leftist credentials as the founder of an avant-garde, gay theater troupe. And he cannily agreed to make no move without input from a “congress of fans.” St. Pauli may have found how to strike a balance between “cult and commerce.”

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us