Why RB Leipzig is the most hated club in Germany

[THREAD]

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RB Leipzig was founded in May 2009, as the Austrian giant “Red Bull” took control over the small club SSV Markranstadt, which played in the 5th German Divison this time. It changed its name, logo and colors, they “Red Bull’d” the club.

Since then, in just 8 seasons RB reached the 1st division, and nowadays, only 11 years after its foundation they already belong to the best Football Clubs in Europe and are a serious title contender for the Bundesliga.

Now since the Bundesliga only had 2 different winners the last decade (with Bayern Munich winning 9 and Dortmund 2) you might assume, a new title contender is very welcomed and celebrated, but instead RB Leipzig is the most hated football club in Germany.

To understand you must take a deeper look into German football, since it's different from the other big leagues in Europe.
Football in Germany has barely changed since the 1960s: sure, stadiums got bigger, the clubs’ brands were globalized, overall Football focuses more on money.

But in the end, football in Germany is still perceived as sacred trust between a club and its fans. German football is very traditional and localized. “Football is a glue in our society”, says Christian Cramer, Borussia Dortmund’s chief executive “It has a social responsibility"

For example the ticket prizes are kept low (≈15 € for the cheapest) and Fans have a lot of influence on decision depending the Club. Football shall be kept the game for the “simple man”.

In order to protect this special relationship, the German FA (DFB) invented the “50+1” rule.
This means that the majority of voting shares need to be owned by individual members. Therefore no investor or oligarchs can own a whole club and decide without the fans having a say.

However, Red Bull found an entirely legal way to undermine this rule by issuing a small number of shares, buying 49% of them itself, then pricing the rest prohibitively and choosing who could invest (mostly Red Bull associates or employees).

Now the main problem German fans have with RB Leipzig is, that Red Bull uses football to advertise their product. "Is the purpose of football to serve the people who love football or to serve something else?" asks Axel Hellmann, who serves on Eintracht Frankfurt's board.

When Leipzig plays in Frankfurt, Eintracht refuses to show its logo on the video board or anywhere else in its arena. "I'm not here to make an advertisement for Red Bull," Hellmann says.

[What they show vs what it normally shows:]

The fear is that other companies see Red Bulls quick success and try to adapt their system.
In the meantime, very traditional clubs like Dynamo Dresden, Hamburger SV, 1860 München and more struggle a lot financially and drop down to lower divisons, some even cease to exist.

Away support from Dynamo Dresden fans in the second (!) division (currently in 3rd)
You see that these people don't come to see a good team but because they love their club.

The very latest example is Schalke 04, the third biggest and one of the most traditional clubs in Germany and now most likely to get relegated and to go bankrupt.

In the end, apart from Bayern Munich and maybe Borussia Dortmund, none of the traditional clubs would be able to keep up with the “plastic” clubs and the Bundesliga would no more be about love for the Club, loud Stadiums, endless support but about advertising products.

For these reasons RB Leipzig and their “costumers” (what their supporters are called in Germany) face a lot of hatred in Germany, which sometimes even leads to violence. In some areas (e.g. in Dresden) you shouldn’t wear a Leipzig shirt.

Severed bullhead at Dresden - Leipzig in DFB-Pokal

When Leipzig played in Dortmund 2017, the situation escalated so much, that some Dortmund Hooligans threw with rocks after women and children that wore Leipzig shirts.
I don’t approve this violence at all, this is just to show you how much tension this sensible topic brings.

My personal opinion:

I really respect how well Leipzig does in producing and developing talents and some of their players and most of their games are great to watch.
But overall, when I see how real football clubs like Schalke or Dresden are slowly dying, I get sad and angry.

Call me crazy, but I’d rather see a Bundesliga that can’t keep up with the other big leagues but didn’t sell its soul than the other way round. For me, love for the club is more important than money.
#FCKRB
#NeinzuRB

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Thank you for reading until the end, I hope it was informative and not too boring/long :)

Feel free to drop some feedback/opinions in the comments!

This article helped me a lot, so if you want to know some more details, go check it out! https://www.espn.com/soccer/german-bundesliga/story/4029702/why-rb-leipzig-is-the-most-hated-soccer-team-in-the-bundesliga

if you want to know more about German fan culture I highly recommend these documentations about derbys in Berlin and Hamburg: