February 10 – The Bundesliga is often held up as a paragon of fairness when it comes to ticket prices. But it’s all relative and fans of Borussia Dortmund fans boycotted the first 20 minutes of their 3-1 quarter-final win over Stuttgart on Tuesday, then threw tennis balls on to the pitch, causing an unusual first-half interruption.
Fans were unhappy at the rising cost of attending Bundesliga games, with a quarter of away tickets for Tuesday’s match costing €70. Last Saturday, an estimated 10,000 Liverpool fans staged a walkout in protest at a top price of £77 for next season.
Dortmund unveiled a banner in protest at ticket prices before the game. Translated it read ‘Football must be affordable’ and Dortmund fan Marc Quambusch, a member of the campaign group, told the BBC: “Obviously it’s not something we want to do, but we feel we have to do it.”
“It’s always good to see fans protesting against bad conditions. I love English football but it is killing itself.”
Explaining the tennis ball protest, Quambusch said fans were being ironic and that Germans use the expression ‘great tennis’ to describe something very good. Throwing tennis balls, he said, was a way of telling Stuttgart that their prices were too high. “It was an idea to make it clear that enough is enough.”
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