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Recent years have been marked by debates as to whether sport should be about politics, and German football is no different. Ahead of the 2026 World Cup, the sporting director of the German Football Association (DFB) Rudi Völler urged players to exercise restraint with regard to expressing political views.
But as polarisation deepens within Germany, a club’s image is being increasingly shaped by the political views associated with its fanbase. So far, efforts by authorities have proven ineffective in censoring the expression of these views. This raises the question of whether further action can, and should, be taken.
Club ultras have always been linked to their political views, but in the Bundesliga, where millions of euros are at stake, the appearance and extremity of these ultras are more contained. It is therefore rarer to see a Bundesliga club with a radical political association.
The reason for this goes beyond the simple answer of money and is instead found in geography. The Bundesliga is notably imbalanced between East and West, an imbalance that can be traced back to the reunification of Germany in 1990 when only two teams from the East were invited into the Bundesliga. It is in East Germany that the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), defined as an extremist party by German intelligence, has gained the most support. This year, the AfD won the election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
This right-wing ‘wave’ extends to football. Several eastern German clubs have had documented far-right and neo-Nazi elements within sections of their supporter scenes, including Energie Cottbus, Chemnitzer FC and Hansa Rostock. According to the north German broadcaster NDR, the latter of these has seen a considerable influx of right-wing ultras compared to 15-20 years ago, an increase that mirrors the rise of the AfD. The chair of the AfD’s youth organisation, Jean-Pascal Hohm, has even encouraged right-wing supporters to attend football matches, suggesting that not only is extremist sentiment on the rise, but politicians themselves are encouraging the expression of this within sport.
That is not to say that the lower leagues are exclusively populated by the right. On the contrary, it is in these leagues where left-wing ultras are also vocal. St. Pauli is notorious for its left-wing ultras and for its rivalry with Hansa Rostock, a rivalry known as the Political Derby, and one that has been marked by violence and racism. Ironically, however, following threats to restrict Rostock’s away tickets in 2010 there was a surprising moment of solidarity from the St. Pauli side when fans of both teams met to defend fan rights. The third league’s official website labels itself as fussball pur (pure football): the question is whether football in its purest form includes or excludes political identities and the expression of them.
The DFB’s approach has seemed to lean towards exclusion, reflecting Germany’s own strategy of confronting its Nazi past through strict prohibition. When, in early 2024, Adidas came under fire for its design for the national team – the font of the number 44 bearing a resemblance to the insignia of the Schutzstaffel – the DFB quickly announced that the 44 customisation would be banned. This season, the Westphalian football association banned the number 88 from its competitions given that the number 88 serves as a reference to the Heil Hitler salute.
That approach may run into difficulty given that there are increasingly encoded ways in which far-right ultras are expressing their beliefs. For example, one clothing brand associated with the far right, Consdaple, has had its letters reconstructed to read “NSDAP” (The Nazi Party) when worn under an open jacket. To ban this clothing entirely, however, would be difficult, and if it were banned, would it not lead to a new item becoming a symbol for political expression? To ban a symbol will not result in the elimination of the beliefs it expresses, a symbol is just that: a symbol of a political environment that is becoming increasingly extreme.