There's a new name in the German top flight and it belongs to a village team financed by a software billionaire. FC Hoffenheim's success has not been too popular, as Dominic Hinde explains
Tiny FC Hoffenheim achieved promotion to Germany’s top flight at the end of last season. It should be a story to warm the hearts of football fans everywhere. Yet many believe they shouldn’t be in the Bundesliga.
As the World Cup approaches, the possibility of violence is a concern but so is the ability of the German police to tell the difference between a fan and a hooligan, writes Paul Joyce
On November 27, 53 Polish hooligans drove to a wood in Briesen in north-east Germany for a pre-World Cup fight with 45 hooligans drawn from the region’s Hell’s Angels and nightclub bouncer scene, one of whom had been involved in the assault on French policeman Daniel Nivel at the 1998 World Cup. Although German hooligans had previously been keeping a low profile at home, fears of a resurgence of organised violence had already surfaced last March, when more than 40 Germany followers were arrested after rioting during a friendly in Slovenia.
If you want to travel to see a Bundesliga game next season, a map of the old West Germany will do. Paul Joyce reports on a playing and financial crisis in the East
Hansa Rostock’s relegation from the Bundesliga means that, for the first time since reunification, the former East Germany will not be represented in the top flight next season. Two clubs from what had been the DDR entered the Bundesliga in 1991-92, with six others joining the national second division, 2. Bundesliga, and the east receiving its own regional third division. For 2005-06, however, the east will only have four clubs in the second division (Rostock, Erzgebirge Aue, Dynamo Dresden and Energie Cottbus) and at most three teams in the restructured third tier.