Wolfsburg’s footballers want to bring the Champions League title to the city on Saturday. Former world champion Nia Künzer sees the players in the favor of the fans even before the footballers of VfL.
Former world champion Nia Künzer thinks that the women at VfL Wolfsburg are more popular with the fans than the men at the club, who are coached by Niko Kovac.
“More and more popular, I would almost hang myself out of the window for that, are the women of Wolfsburg,” said Künzer of the “Deutsche Presse-Agentur” and noted: “And that can’t be measured in numbers or money, but that what the women’s team from VfL Wolfsburg presents to the public is almost priceless – not for VfL and not for VW either.”
The club, which is 100 percent owned by carmaker Volkswagen, is in the final of the Champions League against FC Barcelona with its women’s team in Eindhoven on Saturday (4:00 p.m. / ZDF and DAZN), while the VfL footballers last weekend had missed entering international business with a 1-2 draw against relegated Hertha BSC.
Finances in women’s football “still in deficit”
“The players just come across as authentic, approachable, passionate, intelligent, they embody all these attributes,” said Künzer, explaining the value of female footballers.
They are for “a lot of children and young people, but also adults, role models.” In addition, the players “maybe also have the closeness that cannot be produced in other areas”.
In terms of finances, women’s and men’s football are still far apart, women’s football is “still in deficit,” said VfL managing director Michael Meeske. “The following applies to personnel costs: Around 90 million euros are attributable to the licensed players area, around five million euros to our women, with a slight upward trend.”
They want to continue “pushing the footballers without reducing anything on the other side. This approach doesn’t exist and doesn’t make any sense,” said Ralf Kellermann, Wolfsburg’s director of women’s football, the “dpa”. “We don’t have that kind of competitive thinking, we’re a club.” The question of whether women’s football in Wolfsburg can replace men’s football as number one in the long run makes him “angry”.