Dortmund (Alemanya)Peter Fischer (1956) is one of the most valued German football leaders in the country. And not just because he has been chairing Eintracht Frankfurt for 22 years, but also because of his clear stances against the far right. The political class often invites him to take action against racism, fascism, anti-Semitism or homophobia. A few days ago he met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. He is a kind of Foreign Minister of the Eintracht: he represents the club in the high spheres and gives representation to the emblematic culture of the fan. The Frankfurt fans are crazy about Barça’s visit. In this interview Fischer explains why.
Do you know that there is a Barcelona drink at the Eintracht Frankfurt Museum?
— [Pensa uns segons]. The truth is, no. It must be for someone friendly.
Exactly. A cup to be a finalist for the 1976 Joan Gamper Trophy. Have you ever been to the Camp Nou?
– Personally, no.
How curious are you to experience the atmosphere at the Camp Nou?
– For Eintracht Frankfurt, a match against Barça is an exceptional situation. It is the biggest sporting event for our club since we played in the 1960 European Cup final against Real Madrid. We are incredibly excited and very proud to play against Barça. The whole Hessen region is hot. We could have filled more stadiums. Everywhere you look today, the tide of protectionist sentiment is flowing. At the butcher, at the bakery, at the gas station, in the taxi. Everyone wants a ticket. In Frankfurt there is only one issue: the match against Barça.
Eintracht has received more than 250,000 ticket requests for this match. Frankfurt Stadium is close to 50,000 seats. They could have filled five stadiums!
– Exactly. This is the fever here.
What will Barça be like in Frankfurt this Thursday?
– Barça players are used to winning many competitions and playing everywhere, but I can assure you that the atmosphere they will experience in our stadium will impress them. To them and to the Barça fans who come.
The local press says that the Eintracht will also have a lot of support in Barcelona. Up to 35,000 fans want to travel there. The spokesman for the board explained that some fans have told him that they are interrupting their holidays in Namibia and Mauritius to fly to Barcelona.
– Yes, we also have people from Canada and other parts of America who have told us to come to the party. It’s extremely crazy, but so is the Eintracht audience classic. When we played in Milan or other European cities, 20,000 people also came. And Barcelona is even more stellar and more unique. The problem is that many of our fans will not have tickets.
Barça is proud to be more than just a club. One week ago, a world record was set at the Camp Nou for a match between women’s teams, which underlines the club’s motto. From your perspective, what does it mean to be “more than a club” and to what extent is Eintracht so?
– For us it has to do with infrastructure. The club offers 52 sports. I always joke that we do everything but some discipline with horses or Formula 1. It’s exceptional. We don’t know if there are any clubs in the world that offer so many. And what is the brightest element, professional football, is managed through Eintracht Frankfurt SA, where 67-68% of the shares are currently owned by the club itself, so we are the shareholder. majority and those we sit behind the wheel.
You are a kind of Eintracht Foreign Minister. In mid-February he was part of the Federal Assembly that voted for the President of the Republic, the highest representative office in the state. There he spoke with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other personalities. What love did they pass on to you and the club?
– I’ve been to a lot of political events and awards ceremonies. This year I received three or four. It is very honorable. And this has to do with the fact that the Eintracht Frankfurt, by its DNA and in its works, has positioned itself very clearly beyond sport. That’s why it’s also more than just a club. He has taken a stand against racism, against fascism, against anti-Semitism, against homophobia. We have a very clear opinion and we are very committed to these issues. That is why we are distinguished in political and media events. As we do and as we live it, there is no other club in the Bundesliga like this. We have a remarkable Jewish past and we do a job [de memòria històrica] until the end. We are friends of Jewish sports clubs and the Jewish community in Germany. We do things together, because today, and unfortunately, anti-Semitism is once again present in Germany, and we stand together against it. We meet a lot. A few days ago I received an award for clearly condemning the terrorist act in Hanau in a demonstration. [ciutat propera a Frankfurt on el 2020 un extremista de dretes va assassinar nou persones amb arrels migratòries].
You once said, “As long as he is president, there will be no Nazis at Eintracht Frankfurt.” Two years ago, former club president Rudi Gramlich was stripped of his honorary presidency for his past as an SS man. You pushed the club’s revision work on the Nazi past. The director of the Eintracht Museum, Matthias Thoma, received the prestigious Julius Hirsch Award for this work. And a ninety-year-old Theresienstadt concentration camp survivor and Eintracht fan Helmut Sonny Sonnenberg has become one of the club’s top ambassadors. Do you understand that all this work is the best way to stay true to the values of the Eintracht?
– I understand that the job is to take advantage of the popularity of sports, especially football. As the president of a traditional club you have a certain media dimension and we use it very firmly to indicate what our values and commitments are. We do our best, with different actions, to take advantage of the incredible media recognition of the sport. I believe that today the Eintracht transmits its values perfectly through sport and beyond sport.
The Super League is a wrong approach, an instrument for clubs that are indebted to their own fault. ”
Peter Fisher President of the Eintracht Frankfurt
How much has your life changed since you publicly said in December 2017 that being a member of the Eintracht and voting for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party does not fit?
– There is a huge archive full of emails with hate messages, with clear Nazi content and threats of attacks and death. I never would have thought that this could be so extreme. But, on the other hand, there are also thousands of people who have become members of the Eintracht not because of sport but because of solidarity with our values and because they want to be part of this position. We have new members from all the Bundesliga clubs who have told us that when the two teams face each other we are sporting competition and want to win, but they support us as passive members because of our commitment.
Did you know that Barça president Joan Laporta also received death threats during his first term declaring zero tolerance for the ultra-violent?
– I didn’t know, no. But thanks for the hint. So I will have the opportunity to talk about it when I come with the Barça delegation to Frankfurt.
They will also be able to talk about the plans of the Super League …
– We are against it with all our might. The Super League has become in the end only an instrument for those clubs that are highly indebted. They are highly indebted to their own fault. And now they are looking for a way to finance themselves at the expense of the football we all love so much. No promotions or descents, no sports competition or tradition. For us it is a wrong development.
The pandemic has impacted financially in all clubs. Would Eintracht fans understand that the club, in order to alleviate its financial problems, organized, for example, a friendly match in Saudi Arabia or Qatar?
– Ugh! I can’t imagine that he would be so sympathetic to such an act here and in fact I can’t imagine that he could even think about it here.
The power of the fans. How would you define fan culture at Eintracht Frankfurt?
– We are a multicolored society. In our club alone we have 120 nationalities. For us, religion, nationality, skin color play no role. We have a culture of diverse fans, who understand each other wonderfully and are supportive of each other, and we are certainly known in the Bundesliga for our extremely strong fan culture. In away matches, our ticket quota is always exhausted, against the Bundesliga team or whoever. Our fans would travel to the North Pole if there was an Eintracht match. They are present everywhere, they fill everything and form an incredible and intense culture lived between them. For many it is almost a religion.
