LOK STOCK IS SACRED
WE EMBRACE RICH & POOR
I’VE JUST returned from Leipzig, which has suddenly become a very vibrant city with lots of interesting things going on, from both a social and economical point of view. From a football perspective, the progress of RB Leipzig has attracted a lot of negative attention in the media – the club created and run by Red Bull. We could talk all day about the wrongs and rights of the way Red Bull have cleverly got round the rules in Germany, which while ticking the box to a certain extent, has upset the rest of German football. As the supporters of Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and others protest about the structure of RB Leipzig, the club’s newfound support base is delighted at having Bundesliga football in the city once more. At the same time, traditional supporters of football in Germany’s fastest growing city, are outraged. I’m referring specifically to the fans of Lokomotive Leipzig (Lok), a club we associate with the old DDR. They play in the regional league but they remain quite well supported and their fans, who have not always had good press, are passionate. RB are a young “manufactured” club that represents the very essence of corporate football that fans at clubs like Lok, and indeed Non-League clubs in Britain, largely reject. But just what is the right model and what is the right structure for the game at NonLeague? People talk about “level playing fields” and quite frankly, they’ve never really existed in football. Football is all about meritocracy – the rich invariably are more successful than the poor. Is it level to have a club with an average crowd of 75,000 playing against a team that can only muster up 18,000? In Non-League football, clubs with inflated investment are almost always despised by their rivals. We have seen some pretty ridiculous scenarios where village clubs suddenly get stacks of money courtesy of an ego-driven businessman. It works for a while, but when the plug is pulled the club drops as fast as it has risen and people don’t care too much. There should be a place for all kinds of football models, if every club was exactly the same, the pecking order may never change. I’ve long been an advocate of supporterowned clubs at Non-League level, but I also feel that this type of club can only thrive if every club has a similar structure. I recall when Team Bath were playing in the Southern League that a lot of people hated them, and no doubt the vitriol directed towards them contributed to their demise. I wonder how a team from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, like Pegasus back in the 1950s, would be received today? I returned to Leipzig and saw the approach being taken by the new kid on the Bundesliga block. They are very open about what they are trying to achieve. If you’re ever in Leipzig, a trip to RB and Lok is certainly worth it. Non-League fans will surely love Lok’s atmospheric old ground!