News : DFB: The women's national team is being sabotaged by the association

The 2019 World Cup is in its final phase - and Germany is not there. This is sporty annoying and raises questions rightly. Much more important, however, is to get the football played by women in the coming months and years out of the marginal sports niche and to achieve lasting effects. When it comes to sustainability, we also need media that in principle report far too little about women in sports.

First and foremost, however, the German Football Association (DFB) must take responsibility, starting with the question of payment. It is a scandal that there are Bundesliga players who get 250 euros a month. Demands for financial equality in club football are still not very helpful, but the salaries of men are too high. The role of the non-profit DFB looks different. According to its own statutes, the association must generally promote football - the same premiums for both national teams should therefore be mandatory.

At the highest level, apparently only one recipe for success is applied: the total focus on men's football. Certainly the commitment of big professional clubs like Manchester City, FC Barcelona or FC Bayern is to be evaluated positively. But if Fifa president Gianni Infantino announces two new competitions as the main goal with the Nations League and a club World Cup, that's the wrong way to go.

There must be opportunities to promote the sport and its protagonists without invariably orienting oneself towards men's football. But that could happen if commercial success is above sport. The World Cup shows that there is no long discussion with the referees, pack formation or theatricality with a few exceptions. It is more relaxed than the men, the atmosphere in the stadiums is based on the action in the square and is not a dull constant song of eternally same songs. Therefore, women's football deserves to go other ways than equalization.

Maybe it helps to leave the European perspective. In the US, football has been played by many women for a long time, thanks to high school promotion. There has established a professional league (NWSL), which is played in this season in front of an average of over 6000 spectators. The US national team are employed by the association, all others are paid by the clubs and receive annual salaries between 16.538 and 46.200 US dollars. This does not guarantee a career without worrying about the career afterwards. But in which sport did you look after the end of your career? Salaries in the NWSL are a step in the right direction. How high the athletic level can be under these conditions, shows the US team at this World Cup.

Whatever the future of football in Germany, the DFB needs progressive ideas. More advanced than the dubious demand in the "time" to give women's football other rules or smaller playing fields:

• A marketing that deserves this name and does not rest on the viral success of a commercial commercial. Football needs to be more publicized, for example via late kick-off times, full stadiums or national team players as DFB advertising faces. The association must allow critical issues such as the premium regulation or diversity in the DFB - to patronize without players. However, the players have to position themselves more often with strong opinions.
• A better education of trainers. At the World Cup, nine out of 24 teams were coached by female coaches, and in the upcoming Bundesliga season there is no coach at all. In the football teacher training courses of the German Football Association (DFB) there is on average one woman among 25 participants.
• The DFB recorded a return in the girls' football, the more important is a targeted promotion of clubs with good junior staff.
• A stronger integration of football in school sports. There, girls can be enthusiastic about football regardless of the club.
• Sporting it would have no impact, but it would be a model signal when the DFB is committed to players who want to have a child. Financial protection in the form of parental allowance is one side, but it is also about guaranteed cadre after returning to competitive sports.
• More independence from the successes of the German national team. The World Cup is a major setback under previous marketing principles, because the national team in the coming year at the Olympic Games in Tokyo will not be represented and will probably appear only for the European Championship in 2021 in the public interest. If the DFB leaves the Bundesliga in its niche, nothing will change.

Who starts the upcoming international match in the World Cup qualifier against Montenegro on August 31 at 12.30 clock, but is probably not interested in serious marketing.