Walking through a valley: the DFB women around Alexandra Popp (left) and Sydney Lohmann Image: picture alliance / Eibner press photo
Niko Arnautis, the Eintracht women’s coach, talks in an interview about failures and setbacks in German football, the prospects of the women’s Bundesliga and the recovery of his team.
A year ago, 23,200 spectators came to the Frankfurt Arena for the Eintracht women’s first Bundesliga home game after the European Championships against FC Bayern. This time, significantly less is expected this Sunday (2 p.m. on DAZN) against VfL Wolfsburg. Is the boom in football ebbing?
No. Not at all. Development is going in the right direction. But the range of games on offer has become larger, and you have to take that into account: There are now more highlight games. And it may well be that fewer than 20,000 people come to the stadium. Last season we had the opening game against Bayern with a record at the time, then 14,000 spectators at the home game against Wolfsburg, and even 38,000 in Cologne. More than 13,000 visitors came to Freiburg at the start of the season. All in all, five-digit visitor numbers are increasingly being reached, which is impressive if we compare it to what it was like two years ago. We should monitor it more sustainably and not talk too quickly about a peak or an impending downturn – you can’t set a new record every time.
