With their advance through the divisions of German football RB Leipzig have been hit with a lot of opposition both on and off the football pitch, so I chose to look into the whole thing and even joined the Leipzig fans during their recent away match in Munich

Irrational national hatred

If there is a topic that unites the usually so opposed football fans at the moment around Germany, it’s probably the mutual hatred of RB Leipzig or at least the debate surrounding the club.

But many that join the witch hunt have no idea about the club and are just opposed to the general idea of Red Bull owning a German club, while ignoring the obvious parallels to other clubs that have gone a similar route.

Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke himself was target of much fan criticism on social media after his statement in August 2014 that he would he “would be happy” to welcome Leizpig to the Bundesliga and was “not opposed to them”. Watzke is known to be a supporter of tradition over financial investment.

History

To understand the project RB Leipzig we have to look back at the history of the club. After having failed in the first attempt to build a club in Leipzig in 2006, Red Bull was successful in founding RB Leipzig in 2009. Since then there rise has been fast and it only took them 5 years to journey from the German 5th division to the 2. Bundesliga (2nd division).

While originally thought of taking a back-up role in the Red Bull global football project, which includes a club in Brazil , the New York Red Bulls, Red Bull Salzburg and now RB Leizpig, the club is now the main focus of the project. Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has already outlined the club targets as being the Bundesliga and Champions League in the long run.

Due to the German laws in football Red Bull had to jump through many hoops to be able to actually receive their license. The membership structure which gave Red Bull too much influence got overhauled this summer and the club logo had to get changed again to make Red Bull’s involvement less obvious. The club name couldn’t have the company name in it and so RB actually stands for “lawn ball sports”, though the club is obviously nicknamed “the red bulls”.

Over the years the club has been target of much criticism in Germany with clubs boycotting away games in Leipzig and clubs having to cancel friendly matches against them due to their own fans. Regardless of it the club has pushed on and been delivering the results needed to get them where they are today

Dubious Transfer business

Impossible to disguise is the big activity on the transfer market these past years, but it should also be noted that still most of the players in the squad are German and Austrian which is something that cannot be said about the “Big Spenders” in European football.

Some of the business is done rather dubiously though. RB Leipzig bought Marcel Sabitzer from Austrian club Rapid Wien, just to loan him straight to Red Bull Salzburg. Rapid Wien had previously been able to refuse selling the player to Salzburg due to a contract clause preventing the transfers to direct rivals in the Austrian league. Business like this is why the Red Bull football project was global from the start, but is also a main reason why many people look at them worried and in anger.

It should be noted though that even big European clubs conduct similar business, such as the Frank Lampard loan deal to Man City from their own newly founded club in New York.

Pride of the East

While many may think RB Leipzig is a project purely based on buying a club and then buying good players to guarantee success, this is actually wrong, as Red Bull have provided 30 mil. € to build a huge youth development centre in Leipzig and thus actually looking to build a football project for the long run.

Furthermore they gave the city of Leipzig in Eastern Germany a purpose for their 45,000 holding 2006 World Cup stadium. There has been a clear lack of successful Eastern German football clubs in Germany with none in the Bundesliga and only 3 in the 2nd division (including RB Leipzig) and this is why RB Leipzig is actually getting hardly any criticism in Eastern Germany. It is widely seen that the club may actually be able to restore the pride in Germany’s east and give the large amount of football followers out there a new club to follow.

All of this does go to show that even against all the criticism, RB Leipzig has clearly done enough to fulfill all the requirements by the German Football Association, otherwise they would have never been given the license to play. However dodgy some aspects might seem, it is clearly all right and just and may even be the way to fuel Eastern Germany’s football ambition.

Passion against criticism – I go “undercover”



At the latest after their dominant pre-season win against Paris Saint Germain (4-2), RB Leipzig has appearead on the map of many international experts. Part of the praise for them also came from the excellent atmosphere inside Leipzig’s “Red Bull Arena”

To find out how the fans act and how they see the controversy I decided to go “undercover” and join the away fans at their recent match against 1860 Munich at the Allianz Arena (10.08.2014). It was kind of common knowledge that inviting RB Leipzig to your arena meant a good number of away fans joining them, and this was again the case as I joined 2000 Leipzig fans in Munich (according to their club website).

The atmosphere in the away block was excellent and it started off a good hour before the match. While the home fans were nowhere to be seen, the whole arena suddenly looked up to see (and hear) the main group of away fans marching towards the arena and invading their allocated standing blocks.

Immediately it was obvious there was a lot of bad blood in the arena as Leipzig fans were greeted with a massive banner reading “Our football lives through passion and tradition, you are not part of it.” (picture below). The interesting part was that all the criticism before and during the match (about 5 smaller banners were also shown during the match by the home fans, one of them reading “Even worse than a stupid idea are the people that follow it blindly. Against Red Bull and its fans”) provoked hardly any reaction, besides a “You really are pathetic” chant.

After 90 minutes of good football and pre-match banter I had no voice left but was wholely satisfied with my experience. Apparently I even blended in well on the TV Broadcast pictures of the away end as well, mainly because I was really enjoying myself. Not much in the away end told about the controversy surrounding the club. The general mood was definitely pride of being in the 2nd division and pushing the boys to achieve even greater in the future. The fans were incredibly proud that the football club is representing the region so well. Really the only time the whole “Red Bull sponsorship” business came up in the away camp was during the chant “If we want to, we’ll buy you too” which was probably the most hilarious thing I’d heard in a while, especially after the provocation from the home fans (noteworthy fact: 1860 is being kept alive financially by a Jordanian investor).

RB Leipzig confidently achieved their first ever second division win with a dominant performance (3-0) and you could definitely sense the good connection between players and fans when the squad came over to thank the fans for their great support.

Furthermore the management’s support of the fans is great. I only read after the match, that I wasn’t the only undercover fan there. Sport director of RB Salzburg and Leipzig Ralf Ragnick stood and chanted with the away fans instead of dining on kaviar up in the VIP area of the Allianz Arena. A gesture like this is rarely seen and definitely showed me that it is well working organisation which cares about fans and the region.

Open your eyes

Through looking at the club’s short history and experiencing the mood first hand, I conclude that people really need to open their eyes in Germany. Much of the criticism is based on a pretty shallow analysis of the facts without exploring deeper into the mood of the club. While not everything is perfect and there seem to be some dodgy aspects, clearly the business conducted is righteous enough to grant the club the licence to play.

If people were to compare this situation they would see it’s not too different of 1899 Hoffenheim, who were met with a lot of criticism when rising up to the Bundesliga, but are now widely accepted. The same situation exists with globally more recognised clubs like Manchester City, PSG and AS Monaco just to name a few, yet you don’t see everyone going crazy about them. Nationally in Germany “company clubs” Bayer Leverkusen and VFL Wolfsburg don’t earn much criticism, Borussia Dortmund is a massive company in its own right and there isn’t weekly drama about them either. Yes, those clubs might have a little more history, but at the end of the day anyone playing good football and enriching our football landscape should be given a chance before being slated as intruders and immediately hated.