Football European Championships-trainer Kathrin Longt: “Respect for women missing”

Kathrin longer, how important is the European Championship for women’s football in Germany?

The national team is our figurehead and our visibility. Our success, also in the league, is and falls with the success of the women’s national team. If we get the title, we can make demands; If we divide early, as with the 2023 World Cup, it quickly says: “The women want more money, but performance is not there in terms of sport.” Such a fundamental respect for women is missing. If we are successful, we can exist. But if something goes wrong in terms of sport, we are immediately questioned. It is the conditions that we get available that may prevent more success.

What are these conditions?

It starts in the clubs: the women are always the most important team. You get the worst training times, the worst equipment. In addition, there are too few football spots. The girls’ teams then often go away empty -handed. Of course, money is missing in professionalization. Many players get to the point in the Bundesliga even in the Bundesliga: Do I now go to my right job because my studies are ready and I could earn twice as much? As a result, talent is lost again and again. If we had an existential wage and the players could concentrate on football, they would also be much more efficient. You just create more weight in strength training if you have not been at university or at work for eight hours. This makes the training effect smaller and there are more injuries. Incidentally, they take longer for women than among men, because medical care is poor. Young women become sporting information because they tear themselves and do not heal the cruciate ligament.

Invest professional clubs of men
Recently more in women’s football. How do you rate that?

Of course, the funds that are available in men’s football can help the women’s area. Union Berlin, for example, jumped on this train late, but they showed that you can quickly do a lot of good things with little means. They really lured many fans into the stadium and increased the prestige for the club. And of course: professionalization is good for the players. I look forward to getting a full-time physiotherapist and reasonable salaries if you have your own training ground. On the other hand, we are now ruled by men from men’s football. They have nothing to do with our game and our identity and don’t know each other. And I am skeptical that we are then dependent on their budgets. The HSV has forced its women’s team to lose 750,000 euros for the men’s department. I thought it would be great if we were considered equal departments and women also had an impact on men.

As a result of this development, the fans of men are increasingly going to women. What does that mean?

I am afraid that we will lose our own fan culture a bit, that we will disappear into the men’s license associations and whose fans think: “Well, then we do it just as with the men”. So-called highlight games are moved to large stadiums and many spectators come. Of course that’s a good stage. But then there are also fans who do not know the players, who are 14-year-old girls and scream from the stage “cunt”. This is a tone and a fan culture that has nothing to do with women’s football at all. On the contrary: our fans want a relaxed atmosphere – and no drunk men.

The European Championships see more people on TV than the men’s club World Cup.

We are always reproached, nobody would watch the football of women – but that’s not true. And I find exciting: Even if it is watched, it doesn’t change our presentation. The league games are not shown in public law and the television funds do not increase either. Then it still says that women’s football is worse than men’s football, so nobody is interested. However, we do not make the comparison in any other sport. Nobody would have said that Angelique Kerber’s Wimbledon victory is not worth anything because she would have lost against Roger Federer. No other sport requires that women have to defeat the men. In the end we only compete with women.

Is the soccer field for girls and women intimidating?

Yes, of course, both for players and trainers. I was spat on the first time at the age of eight, by a boy who even played in my team.
He just didn’t want to have me there. As a girl in football, you need an incredibly thick fur. There is no threat from ourselves. No women’s team has ever said: the place belongs to us now. We just want to be allowed to exist in parallel. As a woman, you have to overcome so many resistance to get to the professional area at all.

What resistances are these?

Of course they are diverse. There can be family resistance or cultural reasons. My mother didn’t think I wanted to play football. Maybe there is no maiden team near you at all. Then you have to play in a boys’ team and prevail against all the prejudices. From childhood you hear: “Look, a girl plays along, today we score 100 goals” or: “Step on”, “you can’t lose against a girl”. Unlike men, you do not earn money in youth and below the Bundesliga. That means you have to do your school in parallel and possibly start an apprenticeship with 16. Football is an unpaid additional burden that you are constantly carrying around with yourself and somehow has to cope with. And as a trainer it starts all over again. You are the only woman in the room again and represent all women. If you say something wrong, then because women have no idea about football. You have such insane pressure all the time to prove and legitimize that you are good even though you are a woman.

So what has to happen?

A lot of actors are required. As far as the sports fields are concerned, only the cities and municipalities can be held responsible. As a comprehensive association, the DFB could primarily ensure regulations. He could create special incentives for clubs who have girls’ teams. In the professionals, it could be a license that each club has to lead a women’s and girls’ department. In addition, financial incentives would have to be created: Anyone who has a successful women’s department could receive grants to renovate places or renovate the clubhouse. More must be worth promoting women’s football in the clubs.