In the men’s cup semi -final, the Eternal Duel Waspo 98 Hannover against the Wasserfreunde Spandau 04 will be the eternal duel on Friday.
Photo: Imago/Camera4+
The school children still have the Schöneberg sports and apprenticeship hall under control. In the mint green entrance area, where a blackboard still reminds of the world records over 100 and 200 meters of dolphin, which Mark Spitz set up in the Schöneberg pool in 1967, the school classes go in and out until Friday afternoon.
After that, the cup round of the German water polo players is rebuilt. Tables on the edge of the pelvis for the VIP guests, food from Alfred’s bistro under the grandstand-named after Spandau’s water polo legend Alfred Balen-as well as a bar and a DJ desk for the Players party on Saturday evening after the award ceremony. All of this is organized by Stefan Seidel, the President of SG Neukölln, who is organizing the cup final for the first time this year.
“The German Swimming Association always has problems finding hosts because the money costs and many don’t want to do that,” explains the 49-year-old in an interview with “ND” in the swimming pool on Sachsendamm. “So I enjoy something like that.” The two-meter-hühne, which used to be active for the SG Neukölln in the Wassergar Bundesliga, applied for the necessary financial support for the final four tournament in January.
The last successes are 35 years ago
Although the Neukölln waterball players surprisingly failed at Duisburger SV 1898 in the quarter -finals, Seidel has been doing everything possible to organize a big cup break since then. 15 euros cost the day tickets, 25 euros for the whole tournament with which you can see both the four semi -final games of men and women this Friday and the duels for third place and the two final games on Saturday. Calculated with 300 to 400 spectators per day.
Such figures would be a success for a sport that has been trying to go under for some time. The last great successes are over 35 years ago. In 1981 and 1989 the German water polo players most recently won the European Championship. In between there was bronze in 1984 at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles and in 2004 a fifth place at the Olympics in Athens. It was now over 20 years ago.
The latest potential analysis of the Potas Commission of the Interior Ministry and the German Olympic Sports Association will continue to attest to the Wassball in the future. Of the 99 Olympic sports examined, the German water polo players are located in places 94 and 95-despite a remarkable fifth place in the U20 waterball players at the EM 2024. Because the Potas analysis also decides on the distribution of sports funding, the ranking has drastic consequences.
Missing money and lack of professionalization
“We got a reduction of the funds of 40 percent this year because we were so little successful,” explains Neukölln President Seidel, who works full-time at the German Swimming Association as a competitive sports officer for water polo. As a result, much less money is available for the national teams of women and men, for the coaches of the selection teams and the supervisor.
However, it only helps investments to raise the water polo in Germany to a higher level and to make the gap smaller to top nations such as Serbia, Croatia and Hungary. At the club level, this is currently only possible with private donors. Both the reigning German champion Waspo 98 Hannover and record champions Wasserfreunde Spandau 04 have influential officials with women-national coach Karsten Seehafer and ex-men national coach Hagen tribe, with the help of which the clubs can work highly.
In contrast, the SG Neukölln, the sixth of the eight teams comprehensive Bundesliga, can only be trained once a day. “We are the best amateur team, so to speak,” admits Seidel openly. The example of SV Ludwigsburg 08 shows how sensitive the attempt is to professionalize itself quickly. The Baden-Württemberg team competed with a significantly higher budget for the current Bundesliga season, but had to stop playing in November due to financial problems.
Youth work as a way out of the sinking?
The SG Neukölln goes a different way. “At the moment we are doing sensational youth work,” says Seidel. In addition to a successful youth cooperation with Spandau, the association at several Neukölln schools from the third grade offers water polo alternately with regular swimming lessons. The end is the Bärli-Ball tournament, in which the school teams can compete against each other. “You can see what is possible. Then there are three hundred parents in Neukölln on the edge of the pelvis, who have no idea about this sport at all, and roar and fire. «
The SG President also wants a similar mood for the cup round in the Schöneberg swimming pool. Because if the tournament is well received, Seidel can also imagine aligning the final four tournament in Berlin permanently, like the DFB Cup final in football. To set a positive sign, which is possible for the German water polo despite all the adversities.