“Football,” they used to say in Germany, “is the most beautiful minor matter in the world.” That sentiment went out of fashion, along with those funny denim vests covered with fan badges and managers in salmon-coloured blazers, a few years ago. The game has become one of the most important, major matters in the country, a cultural activity that seems bigger than music, art, theatre and all other sports combined, if audience figures are anything to go by.

That rise to all-conquering prominence has attracted the country’s brightest minds and developed into a highly professional, productive industry. But football’s heightened social relevance is also reflected in the sort of insufferably grim, po-faced seriousness that used to be confined to political struggles or actual tribal conflicts.

Due to its lower profile internationally and Germans’ relatively small appetite for public debate, we have, mercifully, not yet reached the point where recently-converted VfL Wolfsburg supporters in sub-saharan Africa scour the internet for perceived slights of their club and vow to hound the offending pro-Whatever FC journalists out of their jobs. (Regular “comments section” frequenters will recognise the phenomenon: newcomers to the faith, especially those who live too far away to physically congregate with their gods and prophets, seem to feel the need to compensate for those defects by adopting a fundamentalist, 100% humour-free stance in defence of their side, while those born into the religion through parental lineage or proximity can often afford a more relaxed, ambivalent and honest relationship with the powers that be, as well as more tolerance towards non-believers).

But the prevalent ultra-earnestness and “us and them” mentality is nevertheless beginning to suck the fun out of weekends a little, as recent events have shown. Before last week’s Ruhr derby on TV, BVB and Schalke supporters surrounded and hit out at the car carrying commentator Marcel Reif to the game. Reif, 65, laughed it off but he was showered with beer, spat at and threatened by Dortmund fans foaming at the mouth in the run-up to the Black and Yellows’ DFB Pokal win at Dresden on Wednesday night. His crime had been to sardonically describe the Batman/Robin masquerade as “Punch and Judy theatre”. “I’m too old [for such stunts], but we live in a free country, of course,” he said. The Dortmund coach, Jürgen Klopp, replied in the Dresden pre-match conference that everyone found the celebration funny. “Everyone apart from Marcel Reif – he doesn’t find anything any more in his life.” Reif stopped short of blaming Klopp for the subsequent trouble but called his comments “irresponsible”. Klopp apologised on Wednesday night by saying “there was no need for that”.

Reif, to tell the whole story, had called Klopp a “Rumpeltiltskin who would have been better off in the second division” in a 2008 newspaper column he later retracted. But it is unlikely that BVB supporters were still enraged by that comment seven years later. The hate towards the Sky Germany man is sadly indicative of that new era of dourness we seem to have entered. Reif is disliked because of his critical, sometimes sarcastic, commentary about the game and the teams, for a sense of irony and distance that those embroiled in partisan passions find simply unacceptable. His eloquence is treated with suspicion – some find it patronising, others boastful – his failure to commit to a team as treason. Bayern-lovers are convinced he hates Bayern, Bayern-haters are sure he loves Bayern. He actually supports Kaiserslautern. But most of all, they viscerally dislike the subtext of his rhetoric: football is never more than football for Reif. That subsumption is regarded as an affront, a declaration of war even, by those who have elevated the game to be the sole provider of identity and purpose in their lives. Nuances and laughs wither in the shadow of giant flags, positions become more and more entrenched. The increasingly bitter “class war” between fans of traditional clubs and those from new money teams like RB Leipzig and Wolfsburg, too, is infused with such quasi-religious fervour. Representatives of the orthodoxy feel it is their duty to defend the purity of their belief-system against the destructive forces of liberal capitalism.

Supporters aren’t the only ones to blame for that joylessness, to be sure. During Bayern’s 3-1 away win to Hannover, thanks to two dodgy refereeing decisions and the return of Bayern-Dusel, the club’s infamous luck in winning games when playing badly, only the travelling supporters from Bavaria made themselves heard. It has been eerily quiet in Hannover home games since the beginning of the season, when the 96 ultras started boycotting their own club and switched their allegiance to the Under-23 team. The most influential supporters’ group was de facto dissolved as well.

The origins of the fall-out go back a couple of years, when 96 president Martin Kind banned the display of a banner with local mass murder Fritz Haarmann, clamped down on the burning of flares and on fans’ dissent against his stewardship in the stadium. Kind called sections of the fans “arseholes” and raised ticket prices as “collective punishment” for certain, unruly sections of the ground.

Matters came to a head when the club insisted that all supporters travel to the away derby game at Braunschweig on organised buses last season. Eleven fans successfully sued against that requirement but the club employed legal technicalities to prevent others from following suit.

Taken separately, each one of these arguments doesn’t appear terribly grave but in an atmosphere of mutual distrust, the situation has escalated. It seems beyond repair now. In an open letter last week, the club admitted making mistakes but expressed a hope that “new fan groups” would fill the void left behind by the ultras. “It read like a personal ad,” wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung. But again, there’s a bigger picture here. The case shows how difficult it has become to find compromise in the current climate.

And from radicalism and hate, it’s but a small step towards actual violence. Twelve policeman were injured during clashes before and after Stuttgart’s 0-0 draw with Hertha on Friday night – one officer fired his gun into the air when his car was ambushed by 80 VfB trouble-seekers. Frustration about the Swabians’ relegation struggle – they are bottom of the table – seems to be the main motive. Inside the ground, Huub Stevens’ team were heckled by irate fans at the final whistle in scenes that have become familiar in the league. Direct dialogue between the crowd and the players provides a welcome degree of accountability but the unwillingness of some fans to accept basic sporting realities – like their team simply not being very good, for example – is indeed worrying. They believe it is the players’ job to win, so the failure to do so is seen as a dereliction of duty. This is the blood and honour discourse of sociopaths and it should be recognised as such, or perhaps better, to be made fun of. Football is supposed to be pleasure, a diversion from depressing reality – not a re-enactment of all its ills.

Talking point

• No animals were harmed in the writing of this column but the same cannot be claimed with full confidence for the entire Bundesliga programme. Sunday, you see, brought the latest chapter in the complex relationship between Köln mascot Hennes VIII and striker Anthony Ujah. The Nigerian had unsuccessfully tried to mount the goat after scoring a couple of years ago and came back for more, ahem, horseplay in the 4-2 win over Frankfurt. This time, Ujah grabbed Hennes VIII by the horns to celebrate a goal. “Sorry, I was a bit too hard for him,” – or was it “to him”? –Ujah wrote by way of apology afterwards. “He’s used to it,” shrugged Köln’s sporting director, Jörg Schmadtke. Ujah is expected to make a peace offering in the shape of a carrot or two on the occasion of Hennes’ eighth birthday on Tuesday.

Results: Stuttgart 0-0 Hertha, Freiburg 0-1 Bremen, Augsburg 1-0 Wolfsburg, Schalke 3-1 Hoffenheim, Mainz 2-2 Gladbach, Hannover 1-3 Bayern, Hamburg 0-0 Dortmund, Köln 4-2 Frankfurt, Paderborn 0-3 Leverkusen.