By beating Bergisch Gladbach, the basketball team from USC-Eisvogel Freiburg became German champions for the first time.
But Harald Janson, the coach and sporting director, didn’t want to get into the celebrations on Deutschlandfunk: “At the same time, we know that German champions in German women’s basketball don’t mean what it means in football or men’s football, for example, which automatically means the Funds are flowing in. We continue to work quietly on our budget and try to do a lot of good for women’s and girls’ sports.”
The budget of the Freiburg Bundesliga club is only a manageable 200,000 euros. Many voluntary helpers are active in the background to make the success of the association possible.
“There is no such extremity anywhere in any other European country”
But unfortunately he has not observed any development or change in perception over the years, said Janson: “We live in a country where the gap between merit, attention, funds in women’s sport is simply extreme compared to men’s sport. There is no such extremity anywhere in no other European country that I have traveled to in terms of basketball,” criticized the basketball official.
“We have a gap of a hundred times. A German basketball player usually earns a hundred times that of a German basketball player. And that’s what the budgets of the clubs look like and nothing changes.”
Triangle: men’s football – media – business
Janson criticized the fact that there was a triangle in the German sports landscape that was interdependent but mutually beneficial: “This triangle is: men’s football – media – business. And in no other country in Europe is it so difficult to penetrate this triangle.”
You have to reach the young generation so that they also have female role models and don’t have to walk the streets with a Cristiano Ronaldo jersey. “We need institutions to empower girls, to give girls the same opportunities as their male counterparts.”
He advocated getting involved and investing in women’s sport: “Women’s sport is no less attractive, we experience exactly the same emotions in women’s sport. You just have to make it possible for fans and children to identify with the athletes.”