MUNICH — Just a day after Germany was picked to host the women’s 2029 European Championship, top clubs in the country have split with the national federation over how to run the women’s league.
In a surprise announcement, the 14 clubs in the women’s Bundesliga said they would go ahead with founding an association for “ensuring the modern, professional and sustainable development of the Women’s Bundesliga and strengthening the commercial potential of professional women’s football.”
They’re doing it without the federation, known as the DFB, which currently runs the league. It comes despite long-running talks that had aimed to create a joint venture between the DFB and the clubs. Last month, the DFB said it would invest around €100 million ($117 million) in the league over eight years.
Club officials accused the DFB of trying to go back on already agreed-on points.
“It was all the more surprising for us clubs that the cornerstones negotiated are now being called into question — even though the clubs will be investing significantly more in the Women’s Bundesliga in comparison,” Bayern Munich chief executive Jan-Christian Dreesen said in a statement.
The clubs are moving ahead without the DFB “to avoid wasting any more time,” Dreesen added.
Eintracht Frankfurt board spokesman Axel Hellmann said he was “disappointed” to find that some points they believed had been agreed with the DFB were then not included in contracts.
The clubs said they are “still open at the current time” to whether the DFB could be involved in the future.
The DFB expressed “bemusement” at the development and said it wanted to continue talks with the clubs over the coming weeks.
Germany was a pioneer in developing women’s soccer in Europe, but recent years have seen its clubs struggle to compete with wealthy, fast-growing teams elsewhere on the continent. No German team has won the women’s Champions League since 2015 as teams from France, Spain and England have dominated.
