DFB vice-president Hans-Joachim Watzke and children's football: What does the BVB boss want?

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Hans-Joachim Watzke wants the reform of the reform

Photograph:

Moritz Müller / IMAGO

What is it all about?

Can sustainable fun be wrong? In German football, a dispute has flared up over the direction of young talent. From the 2024/2025 season, there will be changed forms of play, smaller teams, smaller pitches, smaller goals, fewer results. The goal: less pressure to perform, more development among under 11-year-olds. The German Football Association (DFB) wants to strengthen its base with the concept. Children should be kept in football.

The motivation of the DFB seems clear: In the DFB membership statistics, fewer and fewer junior teams are listed, in 2009 there were still 102,958 teams among the boys. In 2013 there were only 92,706 teams, ten years later 87,790 teams. The trend of teams that can gather enough players to play in the youth sector is clearly pointing downwards.

But how to deal with it? According to a study by the association, 99 percent of respondents from amateur football say that children should have as much fun as possible in the game. However, anyone who knows the classic organised football of the youngest in its original form knows that it differs from the football of the big ones only in its extent: there are smaller fields, smaller goals, only seven players per team and no offside. In leagues at the county level, teams compete for titles. This was the case even with the youngest. From the F-Youth onwards, it's all about performance.

In order to change this, the DFB Bundestag passed the reform last year. For the U6 to U11 there will be game afternoons in a tournament form: Results will then no longer be recorded, there will be no tables: Teams will only be promoted and relegated within the tournament. As a result, the differences between the teams should not be so great, the results should not be so extreme. Instead of just one game per weekend, the teams have several games. So, in one day, children can win several times and lose several times. To a certain extent, react directly to setbacks.

After a pilot phase, the structures are to be launched nationwide next year. For this reason, too, the association's management appointed former Bundesliga coach Hannes Wolf as development director in August. Wolf, however, must first justify himself – against accusations from his own presidium.

What's the problem?

Hans-Joachim "Aki" Watzke described the reform as "incomprehensible" and "incomprehensible" at the Entrepreneurs' Day in Essen. Watzke said there: "If, as a six-, eight- or nine-year-old, you never have the feeling of losing, then you will never find the great strength to win. If we're afraid that an eight-year-old will be thrown completely out of balance because he loses 5-0 with his team, then that says a lot about German society."

Because losing can no longer be learned at the age of twelve, at least that's what CDU member Watzke implies. There are "many people in the DFB and in society as a whole who say: We have to have less pressure to perform and stress at work and rather a little more home office. We all have to be happy and peaceful and get along well with each other and see to it that in the end we find someone else who pays for the whole thing«. Young football as the nucleus of social decline?

The debate is reminiscent of the comparatively small reform of the Federal Youth Games. Even then, conservatives had complained that the meritocracy could be deprived of its basis, good performance would no longer be rewarded. Watzke, who as DFB vice-president is part of a commission to save German football alongside officials such as Rudi Völler, does not want to be accused of this and announced a reform of the reform. There is no official confirmation of this.

The reaction from inside the bandage is sometimes harsh. Wolf defended the reform in a press release by saying that the new forms of play demand performance and promote the immediate feedback of winning and losing. "The new game formats are not rigid, but in the future we will always have the opportunity to develop them further and adapt them to the realities on Germany's pitches and to the best learning conditions."

DFB President Bernd Neuendorf spoke out via the SID news agency that Watzke's statements had surprised him. "The new forms of play in children's football were unanimously approved by the DFB Bundestag in Bonn in 2022 after a pilot phase lasting several years with the close involvement of the DFL." In his statements, Neuendorf indirectly accused Watzke of a lack of depth of knowledge: "Anyone who deals with the new forms of play will quickly realize that it is of course about performance, about winning and losing, about success and failure."

How do other associations do it?

Now, the DFB is only known to a limited extent as a driver of innovation. So why does the association go so far out on a limb when it comes to the question of youth? The answer is that he doesn't lean far out of the window at all.

The English Football Association has also been thinking about its youngest. The philosophy is similar to that of the DFB concept, where the header game is addressed and even prohibited in training sessions (at the DFB it is to be automatically circumvented by smaller forms of play). In addition, there are no leagues for under ten-year-olds, but also alternative tournament forms. This allows the children to win and lose in a playful environment, as they say. The game is played in a five-on-five for under-eight-year-olds and seven-on-seven for under-ten-year-olds. According to the association, youth football for the U7 and U8 age groups is all about having fun and playing with friends. Only from the age groups U9 and U10 the football skills should be in the foreground.

The DFB also draws comparisons on its website: There is also no league system in France up to the U13s. Instead, they rely on so-called football festivals, an idea behind it: All team members must be on the pitch for at least half of the total playing time. Such systems also exist in other countries, in Spain, for example, there is even the threat of fines in youth football if not all children are used in the match squad. Spain is also an example of how children in other European countries often take their first steps with futsal, a variant of indoor football with five players per team. Futsal implies more ball actions per player and a greater focus on basic techniques.