why do we say that Germany is a “football country”?

After a World Cup organized in the middle of the desert, in Qatar, and a previous edition contested across Europe, the Euro returns to a classic format, with a single home country, Germany, a nation which is used to organizing major football competitions. In France, it is often said that it is a “football country”. The implication is barely veiled: it would be more so than France itself.

Our neighbor across the Rhine meets all the criteria to be qualified in this way. Football is by far the most practiced sport there, with 7,131,936 participants recorded by the German Football Federation, according to figures communicated by UEFA in 2023. A total much higher than France and its 2, 22 million licensees, or the number of handball players in Germany (approximately 750,000), the second national sport.

At the highest international level, few selections can boast of having the track record of this team which was until recently called the Mannschaft. Only Brazil has won more World Cups than her (five against four for Germany – 1954, 1974, 1990, 2014) and no one does better than their three Euro crowns (1972, 1980, 1996) . After all, Gary Lineker didn’t say “Football is a sport played 11 against 11 and, in the end, Germany always wins.” without reason. France also ticks these two criteria, with a very wide practice of sport and a rich international record (2 World Cups, 2 European championships), but it can hardly compete with the cultural effervescence which reigns in Germany in all this which concerns football.

Sport is at the heart of city life. “Knowing which team your club is playing, and whether it’s home or away, that’s the first thing you look at to know what you’re doing on the weekend. It doesn’t matter if they’re playing in the Bundesliga, in the second or third division, you support the club from your city, which is not necessarily the case everywhere in France.”says Ibrahima Traoré, a former Guinean international who spent his entire career in Germany, from 2007 to 2021.

“In Germany, we are not spectators of a match. We do not come as if we were going to the cinema to watch a film. We are an integral part of the scenario of a match and that is passed down from father to son .”

Ibrahima Traoré, ex-Bundesliga player

at franceinfo: sport

Throughout Germany, every weekend, stadiums are packed. Seventeen of the 18 German top division clubs had a fill rate above 90% last season (the only exception being Hoffenheim, 79%). “The attendance of stadiums in Germany far exceeds that of France. In the Bundesliga, Bayern welcomes more than 70,000 spectators, 80,000 even for Borussia Dortmund, while only OM exceeds 60,000 in France. is even more revealing in the lower divisions”, notes the historian specializing in German civilization Ulrich Pfeil, author of Football and identity in France and Germany (Northern, 2010).

“This year, in the third division, my former club, Dynamo Dresden, welcomed almost 30,000 spectators on average. You don’t see that anywhere else, in any other countrynotes French midfielder Anthony Losilla, current captain of the Bochum club. What is impressive is the number of subscriptions per year. At our place [à Bochum], there are almost as many year-round subscribers as there are seats in the stadium. And now, they even do year-round subscriptions for away matches.”

For comparison, when Ligue 1 displays an average attendance of around 25,000 spectators per match in 2022-2023, the Bundesliga exceeds 40,000. “In France, there are other sports followed assiduously, with great excitement, such as rugby, which Germany does not have at all. The focus is greater on football”, observes Valérien Ismaël. The defender of Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich in the 2000s also remembers the culture of Stammtischthis habit of meeting at the bar to talk about football over a beer.

Living your passion for football is an art of living that the Germans are determined to defend at all costs. For Benjamin McFadyean, doctor and researcher in the history of German football at the University of Portsmouth, nothing better illustrates this visceral attachment to football than the 50+1 rule. In Germany, clubs must be majority shareholders in their team, which prevents any foreign investor from coming to buy the club.

“The clubs are 50% owned by the fans. They remain a community organization and an asset to the community. There is a very strong connection between the owners and the members. I am one at Borussia Dortmund. For ten years , I pay 70 euros per year to be one and it allows me to vote on important subjects which can range from the name of the team to its colors on the jersey to the location of the stadium Nothing can be changed without. a democratic vote”explains Benjamin McFadyean, avid follower of German football news.

A sort of barrier against uprooting or the disappearance of a deep identity, the 50+1 rule almost came into question this year due to a commercial agreement that German clubs were preparing to sign. The latter provided for the transfer of 8% of the television rights for the next 20 seasons in exchange for an immediate, but external, financial contribution. It took numerous demonstrations by German fans, even if it meant upsetting the course of certain matches, last December and January, to push the stakeholders to reverse course.

“When you look in the major German newspapers, you have three or four pages every day on sport in general, on football therefore. In Le Monde, Libération, Le Figaro, in France, you have a maximum of one page.”

Ulrich Pfeil, professor of German civilization at the University of Lorraine

at franceinfo: sport

In Germany, the well-known discourse in France according to which football is a sport played by millionaires who chase a ball does not exist (or very little). “Here, intellectuals have long shown their passion. Martin Heidegger [célèbre philosophe allemand] was a football fan. Same thing with politicians. The current President of the Republic Frank-Walter Steinmeier is a fan of Schalke 04, the former Chancellor Schröder of Hanover… The roots of football are very strong in German society (…). Almost every club also has a museum.illustrates the historian Ulrich Pfeil.

But how did Germany come to be so attached to football? For Benjamin McFadyean, two historical factors played an important role: “After the Second World War, Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, football clubs and the national team became a means of rebuilding a form of national pride.” From the miracle of Berne in 1954 to the last title in 2014, “at least four generations of Germans have experienced a World Cup victory”each reinforcing the public’s attachment to football.

The other factor is that Germany is a Federal Republic, unlike France, where Paris centralizes everything. “The country has only been unified for less than 200 years. Each region has its own traditions. Each club represents its region, its city. We can say for example that Borussia Dortmund is the national team of Westphalia. team is extremely supported by local businesses and residents. In Germany, regional pride is more important than national pride. National identity is itself based largely on regional attachment.explains Benjamin McFadyean.

In recent history, the image of a “football country” has taken on even more volume with the organization of the 2006 World Cup, then the coronation in Brazil eight years later. Although the German national team is experiencing difficulties in its generational renewal, it has a double opportunity this summer to strengthen its reputation, by returning to the highest international level and by successfully organizing the tournament.