Toy plane protest as clubs seek legal certainty over investor plan
Fresh fan protests erupted on Sunday against a German Football League (DFL) plan to recruit an external investor - including a toy plane disrupting a Bundesliga game - as cracks in a previous agreement on the deal began to widen.
What appeared to be chocolate coins rained down onto the pitch early in Freiburg's 3-3 draw with Eintracht Frankfurt, before the remote-controlled toy plane and more hurled sweets led the players to leave the pitch for several minutes in the second half.
On Saturday, remote-controlled cars had disrupted a second-tier game at Hansa Rostock.
Tennis balls were also thrown onto the field in both halves of Bayern Munich's 3-2 loss at Bochum on Sunday, prompting two long delays, while two second-division matches almost had to be abandoned in the latest raft of fan protests against the DFL.
Sunday's match between Nuremberg and Kaiserslautern was disrupted numerous times. Home fans ran onto the perimeter of the pitch behind the goal after 13 minutes carrying banners against the DFL.
Police were deployed inside the stadium and the match was restarted after more than a quarter of an hour.
The match had already kicked off seven minutes late due to tennis balls being thrown onto the field by Kaiserslautern supporters.
Elversberg's game with Osnabrück kicked-off 15 minutes late after netting in front of a supporters' block was not properly secured, apparently in connection with a protest banner hung by the fans.
Immediately after kick-off, the first tennis balls flew out of the visitors' section and onto the pitch. The game was then interrupted for four minutes.
Saturday also saw major protests in the top-two tiers as fans show their anger at the DFL talking with private equity investors about boosting marketing capabilities in a billion-euro ($1.08 billion) deal over a maximum 20 years.
Fans feel profit will be put before them and tradition.
Players have admitted that the stoppages - which have been going on for weeks - are affecting their concentration in games and clubs have started to wonder if it is worth having a new vote on the investor proposals, which only just passed at a previous vote in December.
Darmstadt and Schalke want the issue to be looked at again while Cologne justified their calls for a new vote by citing the lack of legal certainty surrounding the DFL plans.
"First and foremost, we want to ensure legal certainty and acceptance. We know that there are suspicions that the vote at the DFL general meeting was not legally valid due to the Hanover vote and that this constitutes a violation of the 50+1 rule," Cologne sporting director Christian Keller told the news portal Geissblog on Sunday.
"These suspicions must be completely dismissed."
Germany's 50+1 rules, which mean most clubs cannot be majority owned by one investor, led to the DFL looking at how it can boost revenues via a league-wide investment - similar to a deal with Spain's LaLiga.
A required two thirds majority was just reached in December when 24 clubs out of 36 voted to bring in a strategic partner.
However, there has been intense speculation that Hanover managing director Martin Kind voted in favour although he was ordered by the club to oppose an investor. Kind has refused to disclose how he voted, saying the ballot was secret.
According to Keller, "a potential collaboration between the Bundesliga and a private equity company is a major cultural challenge and not really compatible with the essence of German professional football as a public cultural asset.
"It must be clearly and comprehensibly communicated why the deal is necessary from the perspective of a majority of the clubs."
