I do not follow German football myself, but I noticed this piece about Rb Leipzig and it got me thinking. If you read the introduction it seems to be mostly about corporation ownership of a football team and how the ownership by Redbull is a danger to the existing German club system. But clearly it is also about the people/fans of Leipzig, a proud, former East German city.
The images of the yellow Dortmand fans do not suggest to me merely a management dispute about controlling interests in a company. Rather, it seems to suggest that Germany my not have digested the previous great unification in Europe: just as they push ahead with the new one. I'm not sure how well the East and West fits in 2017, and have not discussed the issue for years, assuming the two categories had no meaning anymore in Merkel's Germany.
Moving on, change the nation, and what do we have here? This all puts England's most hated football team into a perspective that I never gave any consideration to before. Millwall FC, somewhere, lost in South London. How did they ever rise to be understood by rival fans, and themselves, as the most hated team in English football? Mystery to me.
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