Berlin taz | Iris Spranger really seems to like her job. In any case, the SPD politician is rarely seen in a bad mood on public occasions. It’s not always fun to be Senator for the Interior. It’s about fateful issues such as deportations; the job makes you a projection surface for extremists of all kinds, which is why personal protection is always required. Maybe that’s why the topic of sport is attached to the interior department to provide a counterbalance.
And so, since she took office in 2021, Spranger could be seen being congratulated at the German Athletics Championships in the Olympic Stadium, at the European Handball Championships and also at the Football Euros. But now the senator has discovered another sport for herself: <a href="https://www.archysport.com/2022/01/more-than-7-players-have-been-seriously-injured-at-the-nfls-washington-stadium/" title="More than 7 players have been seriously injured at the NFL's Washington Stadium”>American football. In other words, the game in which, despite its name, the foot is only used for kick-offs and a kind of free kick and the ball looks more like an egg.
Last weekend Spranger watched such a match in Munich. There was a guest appearance there by two teams from the NFL, essentially the US Bundesliga in football, whose final, the Super Bowl, is shown on television worldwide every February. And although in Munich, based on local football conditions, teams of the Bochum and Hoffenheim category met each other, the stadium was full and the city – and not just according to Spranger – was already full of football fans the day before.
Spranger hoped in a press conference on Tuesday that this would happen at least three times in the Berlin Olympic Stadium between 2025 and 2029. There was an official resolution from the Senate that the state of Berlin should apply to the US league management for such foreign games.
Is this a matter for a state government?
In times of great upheaval, with Trump, traffic lights being turned off and budget problems still unresolved in Berlin, that might seem a bit banal for a state government. However, she couldn’t decide anything really important this week because boss and deputy boss, Kai Wegner (CDU) and Franziska Giffey (SPD), are not in Berlin, but in the USA – although not because of football.
However, the matter is not entirely banal: According to Spranger, the state of Berlin would have to invest around 12 million euros within four years, but could earn many times that amount. A single NFL guest game in Frankfurt am Main is said to have added 110 million euros in added value. The changing rooms just have to be rebuilt and the lawn area enlarged – but this shouldn’t come at the expense of the blue tartan track for athletics.
The NFL wants to decide in the next few weeks whether this will happen – “I’m looking forward to the decision,” said new football fan Spranger on Tuesday.
