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Hans-Joachim Watzke calls the ongoing reform of children’s football “unbelievable” and, as a member of the DFB executive board, calls for alternatives. His comments on this are hard to beat in terms of quality – a comment.
Imagine trying to reform an old, bad system with a lot of effort and against resistance for years. Then we are finally on the right track; almost all districts have already implemented the reform. And then, only then, does the presidency intervene. A prominent member of this executive committee calls the reform “unbelievable.” “incomprehensible”, argues poorly informed and populist. This is exactly what is happening at the German Football Association (DFB).
The cross-shooting executive committee member is called Hans-Joachim Watzke. When asked about the reform among four to eleven year olds at the DUP Entrepreneurs’ Day, he etched in the style of a regulars’ table bully: “Soon we’ll play without the ball. Or we’ll make it square so that it doesn’t run away from the slightly slower young people.” Some may laugh about it, but the many DFB members who have been working hard to persuade people for years certainly don’t.
Poisoned greeting for Hannes Wolf
Watzke, like several other celebrities before him, takes out a single detail from the comprehensive reform: the elimination of tables and (noted) results. “If when you’re six, eight or nine you never feel what it’s like to lose, then you’ll never find the great strength to win.” The new DFB sports director Hannes Wolf should now show alternative courses of action over the next one or two years. “We just decided that”. It remains unclear who Watzke means by “we” because, according to the DFB, there is no committee decision of this kind.*
It’s a poisonous greeting for Wolf. He vehemently defended the children’s football reform at his inaugural press conference. Above all, he explicitly emphasized to the critics that winning and losing would by no means be abolished. In the future, the children will play several games in small teams on small fields. If you win a game, you move up one field; if you lose, you have to move back one field.
If tables, then consistently
Apparently, despite Wolf’s words, Watzke did not understand that the children will continue to experience victory and defeat in the future, even more often than before. Even in training, children always know exactly whether they won or lost, who scored the goals and which children are better, including tears and screams of celebration. This intrinsic motivation does not require league play.
In any case, tables only have meaning and significance if those involved do everything they can to be at the top. In the current seven-on-seven league format, this also means in training: tactical positions, a lot of playing time for the stronger players, ball actions mainly for the two best in the team.
Competitive and popular sports benefit
It has long been clear that children in smaller groups have a lot more ball action and duels and therefore learn more effectively. Implementing this principle in games is logical, as it encourages all coaches to rely more on small pitches in training.
Competitive sports will benefit from the fact that Germany ultimately has more technically well-trained eleven-year-olds. And popular sport benefits – the critics must now be strong – because even less ambitious children can have more fun and participate.
The DFB is late
By the way, the DFB hasn’t come up with anything crazy here, but rather is catching up on what countries like Belgium, the Netherlands and England have been successfully implementing for years. The basic idea of Funino comes from the 1980s.
The fact that it has taken so long to reform children’s football in this country is due to the federal structure of the DFB. The state associations and in some places even the district and city associations are responsible for organizing children’s play operations. It took many years until everyone finally decided together at the DFB Bundestag in March 2022 to make the new forms of play mandatory nationwide from the 2024/25 season.
Watzke presents a devastating picture
The Presidium is also part of the Bundestag and voted at the time. The picture that Watzke now presents with his blanket judgment is all the more devastating. Of course, the details can be argued, which is why many local associations rely on different rules than the DFB suggests.
The DFB proposals also provide for the option of classic seven-on-seven games in the E-youth (U10, U11). This means that the switch to play parties is only mandatory for daycare children, first, second and third graders. But many older men from the professional world see even this as a scandal – which says a lot about the culture in German football.
*In an initial version we wrote that, according to Watzke, the DFB executive committee had asked Hannes Wolf to show alternatives. When asked by Sportschau, the DFB later made it clear that there was no committee decision.