Soon no more football on ARD and ZDF?

By Florian Cain

Frauke Gerlach, managing director of the highly respected Grimme Institute in Marl, is against ARD and ZDF continuing to broadcast football. In this way, the institutions should increase their acceptance among the citizens.

Gerlach literally said: “We need acceptance, and football connects. But that is something that public broadcasting can no longer afford and will no longer afford,” Gerlach told the Neue Ruhr/Rhein Zeitung.

Because: The fee-financed broadcasting is “required to repeatedly provide a justification for its contribution financing”, says Frauke Gerlach. This requires an “independent, value-oriented and knowledge-based program.”

Means: more news and information. In return, there is less or no expensive entertainment and less or no expensive sport at all – such as football, which private providers can also broadcast.

The fact is: The Grimme Institute has been observing the German media landscape for decades. The word of his boss also carries weight in the directorships at ARD and ZDF.

In July, communications professor Michael Schaffrath (TU Munich) had already asked ARD and ZDF to “save on football”. The scientist: “In view of the exorbitantly increased transfer fees and player salaries, football has become a ruinous business that increasingly lives from the alimony of others. The main financiers in international football are some sheikhs and nationally it is mainly television.”

The expert said it was “not necessary from a media law perspective and is becoming increasingly questionable from a socio-political perspective if football is financed with license fees”.

ARD and ZDF see it differently. They see sport as part of basic care. The Federal Constitutional Court is also of the opinion that reports on outstanding sporting events are part of the information in the sense of the classic broadcasting mandate.