German club Allemania Aachen now play in the splendidly modern New Tivoli Stadium, but their home between 1928 and 2009 was the original Tivoli Stadium, which still stands as pictured above in August this year.

Alemannia Aachen enjoyed considerable success in the 1960s, shortly after Tivoli’s capacity was increased, Bundesliga runners-up in 1969. However, bankruptcy almost ended the club’s existence in the 1970s, Aachen saved by several big German teams playing friendlies at Tivoli stadium for no charge to raise funds. Most of their existence has seen them in 2. Bundesliga, though they also spent a season in the top flight in 2006-07, a last year of glory for the crumbling old Tivoli stadium. Capacity crowds of 20,000-odd filled the stadium (only around half covered by a roof), and Aachen even ended up in the UEFA Cup in 2005-06 after finishing as runners-up in the German Cup. Those European nights, however, were not played at Tivoli because the stadium did not meet UEFA’s criteria.

Below, a couple of shots from Tivoli’s days in the Bundesliga in 2006.

Photo credit: kleiner hobbit (top) and Bjørn Giesenbauer (bottom two) on Flickr.

Don’t try this at home, kids. Especially the stuff at the 2:10 mark.

H/T: Ultras-tifo.net

One should be wary of generalising too much from a sample of five games, but Germany’s tremendously successful World Cup so far and the quality of its young players, with its youngest-ever team at the tournament averaging out at 24.7 years-old, has sparked plenty of understandable interest in its youth development system.

That system seems to be the product of far-sighted planning based on disappointment with the quality of players the country was producing at the turn of the millennium, coupled with the priorities of the elite professional structure reflecting a recognition of the benefit of development for the national team along with a strong economic incentive to prioritise young domestic talent.

We can draw these conclusions from two articles in the past few days, by Jamie Jackson today in the Observer and by long-time translator of the German game for an English-language audience, Raphael Honigstein at Sports Illustrated.

Between them, we get a picture of German soccer at a crossroads in the late 1990s. The World Cup winning team of 1990 and the fruits of reunification produced surprisingly diminishing returns as the decade wore on: disappointment at USA ’94 was followed by success at Euro’96 in England and a quarter-final exit at the ’98 World Cup. A very rare group stage exit at the 2000 European Championships was the final spark for a rethink on the structure of youth development, as the proportion of foreigners had risen massively in the Bundesliga during the 1990s, Honigstein tells us:

Below the radar. . .something strange and disconcerting was happening: Germany was running out of decent players. The influx from GDR-trained professionals that was supposed to make “Germany unbeatable for years to come” (according to Franz Beckenbauer after winning the World Cup in 1990) had dried up along with the funding for the specialized sports schools where they had been drilled from a very young age. In the Bundesliga, newly rich clubs awash with TV money had gone on a spending spree, doubling the number of foreigners from 17 percent (1992) to 34 percent (1997) in five years.

Desperate for strikers in particular, national manager Vogts ensured that South-African born Sean Dundee, a Karlsruher FC player without any German background, was fast-tracked for German citizenship. Dundee received his passport in January 1997 but never played for Germany after picking up an injury before his first scheduled game, a friendly against Israel, and losing his form soon after.

Vogts’ successor, Erich Ribbeck, equally desperate, approached another Bundesliga import, Brazilian forward Paulo Rink (Leverkusen). Rink, it turned out, had German grandparents and was quickly introduced to the national team. He picked up 13 caps from 1998 to 2000.

The cases of Rink and Dundee, both unprecedented in German football since the war, demonstrated that something was very wrong. The disappointing quarterfinal exit against Croatia at the 1998 World Cup then made it plain to see: not enough talent was coming through. In the Bundesliga, the percentage of foreigners had risen again, to 50 percent by the time the season kicked off in 2000.

At this point, Honigstein explains, a new structure in Germany’s youth development system was implemented, with 121 national talent centers built for 10-17 year-olds, emphasising technical skills, with full-time coaches at a cost of $15.6 million over five years. Meanwhile, all professional clubs in Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 were required to build youth academies by the German Football Association.

Jackson explains the consequences, quoting Christian Seifert, the Bundesliga’s CEO:

Seifert said that the national team’s stark improvement was a direct result of the overhaul of Germany’s academy system, with all 36 clubs in the two Bundesliga divisions now obliged to operate centrally regulated academies before being given a licence to play in the league. Of the 23-man national squad now in South Africa, 19 came from Bundesliga academies, with the other four from Bundesliga 2 academies.

The most significant change, said Seifert, was insisting that in these new academies at least 12 players in each intake have to be eligible to play for Germany.

“That was the key difference,” he said. “Fifa’s 6+5 rule means only that players must have grown up in the club. For example, Cesc Fabregas was developed at Arsenal, but is Spanish. In Germany, our academies must have 12 in each group able to play for Germany.”

Since that restructuring, the proportion of Germany-qualified players in the Bundesliga has changed significantly.

“In 2003-4 we had 44% from foreign countries,” Seifert said. “Right now it is only 38%. So 62% are able to play for the national team.” In England it is the other way around, with an approximate 60/40 split of foreigners and nationals.

Interestingly, one key cornerstone of German professional soccer and one key economic development provided the underpinnings for this system to be successfully implemented.

Firstly, as Honigstein puts it, economic necessity forced a focus on cheaper domestic talent:

The Kirch TV conglomerate that had bankrolled the Bundesliga boom since the early ’90s collapsed in 2002, leaving the clubs in severe financial difficulties. Faced with huge, unsustainable wage bills, they found that the easiest way to cope was to release all the well-paid but fairly mediocre foreigners on their books and replace them with young, much cheaper recruits from their own youth teams.

Secondly, unlike in England, a unified approach and the requirement that clubs are majority owned by local supporters made it easier to put in place a focus on domestic youth development, according to Jackson:

“In 2003-4 we had 44% from foreign countries,” Seifert said. “Right now it is only 38%. So 62% are able to play for the national team.” In England it is the other way around, with an approximate 60/40 split of foreigners and nationals.

Seifert emphasised that essential to the system’s smooth operation was the unity between clubs and the German FA, achieved in part through the stipulation that no single entity can own more than 49% of a Bundesliga club.

“This way you don’t have a foreign owner who doesn’t really care for the national teams,” said Seifert. “The clubs have a very strong relationship with the FA: we are all engaged in discussions [about youth development].”

That is in stark contrast to England, where infighting between the FA, the Premier League and the Football League resulted in the Professional Game Youth Development Group being disbanded last year after just a year of operation. Since then, no single body has been in control of youth development in England. Instead, the power has rested with Premier League clubs.

Germany’s system emphasises development in elite centres from a slightly older age, and focuses on small-sided skills at younger ages. Via Honigstein: “We start with the U-9s. They play four-a-side, on small pitches, to encourage individual skills,” said Thomas Albeck, head of youth development at Stuttgart. “We then add players every year, only the U-13s are playing with full teams.”

There are many lessons here to consider for countries around the world struggling with trying to work out the best way to develop young domestic talent.

Fans of VfL Bochum following a 3-0 defeat to Hannover 96 on the last day of the Bundesliga season, a result that saw them relegated to 2. Bundesliga. 14 May, 2010.

Kaiserlautern vs. FC Energie Cottbus, Bundesliga 2. The banner reads "Forever Fritz-Walter-Stadion", Kaiserslautern's home stadium, named after West Germany's 1954 World Cup winning team's captain.

Photo credit: Hal_Incandenza on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

In today’s installment of our week-long examination of fan ownership, we turn to Germany. The Bundesliga is often held up as an ideal example of this and a model that English clubs should follow. But, as Terry Duffelen reports, while there is much to admire about the German model, it would be a mistake to see it as a panacea for all football’s problems.

You know when English football is in trouble when it looks to Germany for guidance. Certainly, there is much to be admired about the structure and rules that govern club ownership and management in Germany. However, like all management models, it is not perfect.

Put simply, football clubs in Germany are sporting associations. Many were formed many years before football was fully codified, as gymnastic clubs. They are not businesses per se although elements of the club can be run as such. The most apparent advantage to this is that any surplus generated by a club stays within the club and is not used to pay off someone else’s debt or to swell the coffers of a non football business.

The basis of the German model is the 50+1 rule whereby a minimum of 51% of the club must be owned by club members. This still allows for considerable investment opportunities for private business to invest while preventing them from having overall control of the direction of the club. A Bundesliga club board is made up of delegates selected by the shareholders. That way the supporter membership associations or Mutterveiren have a direct say on the management of the club.

The benefits to this method are clear, especially to English supporters who long for an end to the days where English clubs are subject to the whims and excesses of individual owners or uncaring capitalists who use their club to clear their own debts. Corporate interest is curtailed by the interests of the supporters. As long as the supporters have the best interest of the club at heart, that club is unlikely to allow itself to become mismanaged.

Lizenzierungsordnung

Working alongside this model are the DFL’s rules of governance, the Lizenzierungsordnung. These rules regulate the finances of clubs, control the levels of debt that each club should has and imposes restrictions on the amount of money clubs can spend of player’s wages, a major issue in England but also a perceived criticism of the German game and its inability to compete at European level (a view I don’t necessarily subscribe to, but that is another argument). Failure to comply with these regulations can result in the club’s licence being withdrawn and them not being able to participate in the Bundesliga.

It should be said, however, that concerns exist about the tightness of the rules and as to what extent they are are enforced because German football is not without its problems.

For example, in recent years Borussia Dortmund have racked up considerable debt following their glory years in the Champions League. Meanwhile, their neighbours and fierce rivals, Schalke, are currently feeling the pinch with stories coming out in the the German media of tight financial constraints and even talk of bankruptcy. The city of Leipzig, despite a brand new stadium built for the 2006 World Cup, has seen a succession of professional clubs that go to the wall.

So the 50+1 approach to club ownership is not necessarily a guarantee of good governance and Bundesliga clubs are still quite capable of having eyes that are too big for their stomachs. Furthermore, it has critics from within. Hannover 96 President Martin Kind is among them. He argues that Hannover would be well placed to compete for honours and thereby make the Bundesliga more competitive, if he could attract more investors by giving them a larger slice of the pie.

There are also exceptions and anomalies. Bayer Leverkusen and the Wolfsburg club have their genesis as factory clubs owned by Bayer and Volswagen respectively. Hoffenheim’s rise through the leagues to the Winter Championship in 2008 was funded entirely by former player and software billionaire Dietmar Hopp. To use a crude expression, were Hopp to get hit by a bus tomorrow, would Hoffenheim be able to continue investing at the same levels without his benevolence?

And of course there is the recent intervention by Red Bull who are the latest to try and bring sustainable top flight football to Leipzig. Opinion of the energy drink supplier’s involvement in professional sport is so polarised that they should consider buying Marmite. They took control of SSV Markranstädt, a club located not far from the city who play in a regional league in the fifth tier of German football last year. Red Bull are not whole owners of the club and are not are they permitted to incorporate their brand into the club’s name as they have done in Austria, the US and Brazil. However, they have changed the club’s name to RB Leipzig, changed the kits to reflect Red Bull’s aggressive branding strategy and are top of the league. The club plan to move to the Zentralstadion in Lepzig and have ambitions to play in the Bundesliga in a few years time.

The cases of Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig demonstrate that despite majority supporter ownership, neither club would be able to achieve what they have without considerable corporate backing. The price that has been paid is the the identity of both clubs has been transformed and one can only imagine that were either party to withdraw their investment, the clubs could find themselves faced with liabilities that they could not meet. Under this model it is still quite likely that German clubs could end up in the same boat as Portsmouth. It should be stressed however, that German football’s rules on spending as a percentage of turnover should reduce the possibility of this taking place.

It is important, then, not to over romanticise the German system. Bundesliga clubs do overspend. The league is still recovering from the excesses of the late 90′s and the demise of the Kirch corporation followed by the collapse of the corresponding TV deal that left a number of clubs in the hole. Bayern Munich’s FC Hollywood years were operated under the same rules as today. At one time Luca Toni was the highest paid player on the planet at Bayern. German football is quite capable of getting carried away.

Having said that, the system does seem to work overall and with a broad consensus within the game. The Bundesliga is not the most glamorous league in the world. However, it continues to turn a profit, has the highest attendances in Europe and among the lowest ticket prices. The existence of subsidised attendance costs, terracing and access to free football on TV can be directly attributed to supporter’s influence in the club’s decision making.

This sort of legitimate intervention by supporters is unheard of in modern English football. As a model for the future of the Premier and Football Leagues, you could do far worse. But what is more important, in my opinion, is that the leagues operate within strict financial parameters laid down by well put together and vigorously enforced rules that encourage good governance and fiscal responsibility.

Terry Duffelen is the creator of the Onion Bag and writes a weekly blog about the Bundesliga on Some People Are On The Pitch.

Pre-match preparations at Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion, Stuttgart. VfB Stuttgart v Bayer Leverkusen, Bundesliga, 14 October 2006.

Photo credit: poity_uk on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Bayer Leverkusen fan (TSV is the sports club of which the football team is a division). Photo taken February 13th, 2010. Bayer Leverkusen 2-1 Wolfsburg.

Photo credit: [o] Marc on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Bundesliga "autumn champions" Bayer Leverkusen. Fans celebrate their 30-year stay in the top German division. December 19, 2009.

Photo credit: Flash LEV on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool.

Borussia Dortmund fans hoist a giant banner, celebrating the club's one hundredth anniversary. The initials refer to the club's full name, Ballspiel-Verein Borussia 1909 e.V. Dortmund . BVB won 1-0 over Freiburg. December 19, 2009.

Photo credit: clickraa on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion Photo Pool. For more on the origins of Borussia’s name, see Jeremy’s recent excellent post.