Football The North is leading the way
When the gender segregation falls
Status: 02.07.2023 | Reading time: 3 minutes
Amateur soccer player Celine Sassnick (centre) with her teammates from TuS Steyerberg after the game against SV Rot Weiß Deblinghausen
Source: dpa/Gregor Fischer
Lower Saxony, Bremen, now Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein: Here women will be allowed to play with men in a football team in the future. What does that mean for you? And what do national players think of it? An overview.
Without the decision of the Lower Saxony Football Association, Celine Saßnick would not have been able to continue playing, at least not in her club. The 28-year-old has been playing for TuS Steyerberg from the Nienburg/Weser district for 17 years. She is currently a striker in the third men’s team in the third district class. Sometimes she also helps out in the second team a district class above.
This has only been possible for them since December. Since then, women in Lower Saxony have also been allowed to play in men’s teams. For Sassnick, this came “at exactly the right time to be able to continue”. Because around the same time, the club had to cancel the women’s team due to a lack of operational players, she told the German Press Agency.
Sassnick is by no means the only footballer in northern Germany who plays in a men’s team – even if it hasn’t been allowed there for long. In Lower Saxony, more than 100 women played at least one competitive game in the men’s area last season, said Lars Wolf from the Lower Saxony Football Association (NFV). The Bremen Football Association also paved the way for mixed teams at the beginning of the year. The associations in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein announced in the past two weeks that they would follow from the new 2023/24 season.
DFB laid the foundation stone last summer
What was previously possible in the youth sector is now becoming more and more established among adults. National goalkeeper Merle Frohms, who herself played with boys in Celle when she was young, welcomes this development. “It’s nice that girls and women can now get access and just kick the ball,” said the 28-year-old from German cup winners VfL Wolfsburg: “It should go without saying that it’s about sport and not about gender segregation.”
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The German Football Association (DFB) laid the foundation for the opening in June 2022. At that time, the DFB allowed its state and regional associations in amateur football as part of a pilot phase “that players who have reached the age of 18 are granted the right to play in men’s teams”. Only a quarter of the German clubs reported at least one female team, it was said to justify. “Many players therefore find no opportunity to play in a female team in their clubs.”
“I haven’t had any bad experiences”
Playing in mixed teams in order to be able to play at all: That’s one thing. But is it also an advantage for female footballers for their own development? National player Alexandra Popp draws a positive balance for herself personally: “Of course, I learned a lot from the boys that what characterizes my game, this physicality,” she said recently at the media day of the German World Cup team in Herzogenaurach.
But the 32-year-old from Wolfsburg does not want to derive a fundamental advantage from it. “I think there are enough players who have not played with boys in the course of their careers and have nevertheless followed the same career path as I have.” From their point of view, the most important thing is that you play where you play , feel good, explained Popp.
This situation should also apply to the amateur soccer player Sassnick: “I have to say, I haven’t had any bad experiences.” At least in training, she played with the men years before the new regulation. She had the support of the team and before her first game appearance she “didn’t think too much about it”.
Sassnick in the game against TV Wellie. The 28-year-old has been kicking at TuS Steyerberg for 17 years
Source: dpa/Gregor Fischer
One of her teammates at TuS Steyerberg confirms that Sassnick is well integrated. “It was actually pretty well received in our team,” said Jan Boss from the third men’s team. Sassnick is “definitely someone who will also help us”.
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