What a peaceful comment section…
Am I missing context? Why are they refering to a “;)”?
Bayer Leverkusen is seen in Germany as a plastic club by a lot of fans, mostly because they have distanced themselves from their working class roots. They have a family friendly atmosphere and stadium. As a result a part of the ultra fanbase is trying to distance themselves from that clean image by being edgy and coming up with shocking statements.
They have a cult mascot, “der Zitronenmann”, they use as a “spokesperson to” say controversial shit trying to get attention and stay relevant. They have provoked and picked fights with rivals as well, mainly Bremen and Koln.
Big divorced Dad energy
Mostly Single mom energy
two sides of the same coin m8
Yeah but divorced dad energy is not that dangerous as single mom
Bundesliga US twitter account energy
Straight to the gulag
I take it you are a divorced dad with that reflection.
As a result a part of the ultra fanbase is trying to distance themselves from that clean image by being edgy and coming up with shocking statements.
Where are the shocking statements?
Bremen and Koln
of course lol
Every right-wing ultras group hates those clubs. Respectively, they’re seen as the “woke club” and “gay club” by the far-right ultras.
Köln is actually due to the proximity. Bremen however doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, their fans can’t really be generalised as leaning towards any political affiliation.
Not sure what your source is but Bremen Ultras are very, very left leaning.
The club itself is also a bit more left leaning just look at the AFD statements.In 2007 there was an attack on the antirascist Ultra Group Racaille by far right Hooligans at a party inside the stadiums east curve hall. Back at that time most fans were like you said trying to be unpolitical and to avoid any conflicts but there was also the first root of leftist fan groups and anti-rascist, anti-homophobic etc. fan groups coming up.
This attack lead to a change in our fan scene but since then the majority of our ultra scene has been very far left leaning and the Hooligan Groups have been driven out of the stadium.
Of course there is no generalisation of normal fans. I do know someone with very right wing views whos St. Pauli fan but in general our fan scene right now and especially the ultras are left leaning.
Damn, I live in Germany and consume a lot of football and adjacent content, but I’ve never heard of that. Might just be down to me not actively seeking news on Werder though.
I thought RB Leipzig was the only plastic club
No Wolfsburg, Hoffenheim, Leipzig and Leverkusen are the 4 plastic clubs.
I am not German so maybe I am missing something but I can’t really see the equivalence between Wolfsburg and Leverkusen against Hoffenheim and Leipzig. The former were initiated as clubs for the workers of the companies about 100 years ago, the latter two were bought by SAP and RB, respectively. I don’t think it makes sense to see Wolfsburg and Leverkusen in the same light given that their history is deeply intertwined with the corporations that own them, the people of those corporations and the cities they are in.
It’s absolutely normal to me that Wolfsburg and Bayer are owned by their respective Groups, even with the German rule of ownership.
Edit: obviously this ultra message from OP is horrendous and i’m not defending it all btw
No youre not missing anything, youre spot on. They are in no way comparable. Both wolfburg and leverkusen are simply clubs situated in a city that is heavily influenced by a single company and naturally created football and other sports clubs. As you said, they are just worker clubs that have existed for a long time. In comparison redbull is a new brand that isnt even german.
There absolutely is a big difference between the two and people who call wolfburg or leverkusen plastic clubs are just clueless haters.
I see what you’re saying, but intuitively it strikes me as a form of recency bias. One has a hundred-odd years of history, the other doesn’t.
I am not German so maybe I am missing something but I can’t really see the equivalence between Wolfsburg and Leverkusen against Hoffenheim and Leipzig
in general the two broad categories of german clubs are “tradtionsclub”(tradition club) and “Kommerzclub” (commercial club, the plastics).
we do make further distinctions within that second category (Leipzig is seen as by far the worst, then hoffenheim and then wolfsburg and leverkusen) but what they all share is that they are controlled privately and undermine 50+1, so they are grouped together as plastic
I see, that’s interesting. Thanks for the cultural context, makes sense.
They still have a big financial advantage for not being owned by the fans but by Bayer AG a ethicly dubious company at the least. Fans just don’t like that, they take away a spot in the bundesliga from Fan-Owned Clubs, they take away International campaings from Clubs who would actually fill their stadium in these international games, who could actually use the money. All 4 clubs make the leage worse.
“We’re not plastic, we’re homophobic you see ;)”
You’re hating us for the wrong reasons! >:c
Leverkusen are known for their homophobia, Gladbach for attracting Nazis, and we’re just here playing shit football.
LOL everybody in Bremen laughs about that every season, Werder is NOT A RIVAL of Leverkusen, it’s just that their ultras try desperately to start a quarrel with the mainly leftist leaning ultra groups with tame provocations like this one.
Hertha Fans try the same with us in Schalke and other Schalke Fans are always super confused because nobody cares about Hertha Berlin.
Setting aside the fact that I find club friendships and rivalries in general super random and mostly ridiculous, this one has some history. Old Hertha fans remember Schalke using lawyer power to strip Hertha of a crushing 3:0 win in the 71/72 DFB Pokal, after which Schalke went on to win the Pokal that season.
It’s fascinating how we don’t care at all about that story whereas Hertha sees us as their biggest rival or whatever
Leverkusen sees Bremen as rivals, rivalries arent necessarily a two way street. That is why they tried to start shit though, to make it more heated and serious. When they did it with Koln they got chased around the city. Their Ultras are a bunch of useless cunts, they also caused problems in Portugal. Not by fighting with opposing fans, but by harassing locals and businesses.
- There are leftist ultras?
- This is not a tame provocation, it’s an attack on trans people.
In Glasgow we would call this group a bunch of VL’s
and what exactly is controversial in that statement?
Bayer Leverkusen is seen in Germany as a plastic club by a lot of fans, mostly because they have distanced themselves from their working class roots.
This is not the reason though. Leverkusen is s smallish city, right next to Colone and they allways had a limited draw and were a “smaller club”, that never had any major success and whose biggest accomplishment it was to win a match here and there against 1.FC Köln.
When Leverkusen rached the 1st division, in the 80s, FC && Gladbach were two of the biggest clubs in the country and scraped up the fans of the region, pretty much all the Leverkusen fans I know are from the city. From what I know and thats not really, really deep Leverkusen upped their investment, after they survived the fist few years in the league, Bayer invested 2 million deutsche Mark into new players, wich was a lot back then and established themselves as one of the better/top third teams in the league. Fans of other teams then slowly grew to dislike the club, that only had an attendence of around 10k, in a time, where most of the cash clubs made came from selling tickets, being bankrolled by a company, it then became a lot worse, when they were contending in the late 90s, early 2000s.
that clean image by being edgy and coming up with shocking statements.
You mean by voicing their real opinions and then going “just a joke bro”?
Just want to show my flair here to confirm your answer. It’s embarrassing as fuck.
Cringe
Bayer Leverkusen is seen in Germany as a plastic club by a lot of fans, mostly because they have distanced themselves from their working class roots.
No, they are seen as bad for the Bundesliga because they undermine 50+1 by being a works team for Bayer.
The Team existed as Bayer Leverkusen 100 years before 50+1 was a thing.
No reason for Bayer to take over the club then?
They didnt take over the club.
The clubs history begins in February 1903 when 170 workers of Bayer signed a letter to the head of the company asking to found a company athletics team. In July 1904 they officially created Turn- und Spielverein 1904 der Farbenfabrik vormals Friedrich Bayer Co. Leverkusen.
Bayer owned the club from the very beginning and half a century before people even thought you could make money off of professional football. There is nothing plastic about that, just a traditional workers team with deep bonds to its “mother” Bayer. The first time they wore the iconic Bayer Cross on their jerseys was in 1936.
So what? It’s still a special exemption from the law, being grandfathered in doesn’t change that. “Technically, it’s legal” won’t win you any sympathy points.
This.
And? It doesn’t matter how they were founded 100 years ago. Nowadays they are part of the Bayer AG and are one of three (soon to be two) clubs who are exempt from the 50+1 rule.
That makes no sense. The reason why they are exempt from the rule is because the club literally has the roots in the company that founded it ages ago. It absolutely does matter when and how they were founded. Otherwise they wouldnt be exempt.
Which one is the third club? As far as I know, it’s only Leverkusen and RB
Leverkusen, Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim. RB is not exempt from 50+1. They found a workaround
RB is not legally exempt from the rule, they just get around it.
Hoffenheim, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg.
RB is just shady. They are no works team. They are RasenBallsport Leipzig e.V., e.V. meaning “eigetragener Verein” - registered association. A “normal” club on paper.
Kulturkampf 2.0
There’s actually 3 genders in German grammar.
Germany badly needs some English speakers to create a “latinx” for them
lil bro germany is 2 latinx updates infront of the anglos
we have it for every word and we use special characters for it
For englishmen we would use Engländer*in or Engländer_innen
OK I’m curious, mind giving me a quick explanation? There is a gender neutral for every word?
One issue here is that “Geschlechter” was translated as “genders” in the headline, while the word can also be translated as “sexes”, which does make a big difference. I’m not sure though what relevance the existence of two biological sexes has for those fans.
Unless you consider intersex the third sex.
I’m not sure though what relevance the existence of two biological sexes has for those fans.
The same relevance it has for everyone saying there are only two genders: It’s part of their culture war.
But even hardcore gender social constructivists don’t argue for more than 2 sexes? Or have I misread the literature?
There are definitely more than 2 sexes. There are XX, XY, XXY, and XYY.
FYI, most medical literature will refer to intersex genotypes as male or female still with the presence of the Y chromosome generally defining the sex. For instance if you look up XXY on Wikipedia or similar, it will usually say “XXY male”. On crossover events, it’s still characterized as male and female but usually as “XX male” and “XY female”
Those are literally abberations and detract from the actual discussions. Nobody cares about those edge cases, discussions only go there if there is a “but actually…” thing going on
like you just did
No one cares, except for all the people who do.
Maybe the problem is that people don’t care and make uninformed statements?
But its literally the same as if someone asks „how many fingers are on a human hand?“, the answer being 5 and you going „actually the answer is 0-10“ because some people with deformations got born with more or less fingers than usual.
The problem isnt uninformed people, the thing is most people are more than aware about these things but are just able to see whats the point of the discussion and dont want to derail it.
The difference there is that no one discriminates or denies the existence of people with more or less than 10 fingers.
There are quite a few people who argue for sex as a spectrum. Which doesn’t make biological sense and is neither helpful for intersex people nor for transgender people.
The person you’re replying to is wrong, translating the word as gender makes the most sense here. That said, sex isn’t strictly binary ~1.5% of people are intersex, which means when they’re born, they don’t fit the typical definition of male or female.
1.5% of people are not intersex. It’s closer to about 0.02%
I got my numbers from Amnesty International.
Myth 2: Being intersex is very rare
According to experts, around 1.7% of the population is born with intersex traits – comparable to the number of people born with red hair.
It’s a common figure that you will often see but it’s wrong.
It’s based on an academic paper that included a large range of non-intersex conditions that affect phenotype.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/
Actual chromosomal difference (which is what intersex refers to) is about 0.02%.
Why does it make the most sense? The word Geschlecht can mean both sex and gender.
that means 98.5% of all people have either xx or xy karyotypes, right?
The discussion always hinges upon disagreements what to do with those 98.5%. Not about what are those 1.5%.
Thats what I mean.
In my experience, the conservative side of it tends to be reductive like that, trans advocacy has been getting better at including intersex advocacy as well because the two groups have overlapping needs. I mostly mentioned it because it was interesting and relevent though.
Again, this is all well and good, it just fails to grasp the discourse and tries to establish a topic the other side has no interest in. Its literally miscomunication.
I’m just sick of all the people talking past each other hoping that if they do it long enough the other side will come back to the debate on their turf which never happens.
Why do people do that?
Alright, lay it out for me. What am I debating against then? I will try to give a nice thorough answer.
I don’t know what a “gender social constructivist” is, but I do know that from a medical standpoint there are more than two biological sexes.
Football has always had a political side. Those fans showed their political colors I guess
I have a lot of German friends, and it seems really regional but a lot of the country is extremely transphobic.
Which is insane because one of the first book burning was targeted towards a sex institute. First they came for the trans kids…
Meh. Nowadays if you don’t want a mtf athlete competing with biological women or children taking life altering hormones at 12 some coward bully will want to justify bashing your head in because they call you “transphobe”.
We gotta stop with the word and actually talk about the issues without threats every 5 seconds. Not that Reddit is the place for that since it’s circlejerk-land where anyone who disagrees is a nazi, but you get the point.
Realistically, is there a country that isn’t? Maybe Thailand.
I mean here in Sweden I don’t see it too much outside of rural areas. It definitely exists but the status quo is generally fine with it as far as I’ve noticed first hand. I’m not trans though so I’m probably not a reliable authority on the subject.
Most of the world is transphobic
How is this specifically transphobic? I understand that this is against non-binary people, but don’t trans people want to change from one sex to the other, staying in the original binary selection?
These right-wing football fans aren’t waving this banner to start a gentle discussion about the differences between sex and gender. They’re doing it to be provocative and whip up hate against all trans people (including trans men, women and non binary people). It’s a shorthand for basically saying trans people are making it all up, designed to laugh at and try and humiliate trans people, which makes it transphobic / hateful in its sentiment. Intentions matter.
Can confirm that it’s mostly regional. Having spent 15 years in northern Germany, all I ever heard on the topic was something like ‘just let people do what they want’.
Although, and this might be relevant, none of the people I’ve been in contact with are religious or anything of the sort.
Where’s the issue? From the context it’s very clear they meant gender and not sex
There is no issue. It’s very clear that they meant gender and not sex.
I think they were asking because /u/ViciousNakedMoleRat literally said “one issue here is that […]”.
You are right. There is no issue. So I don’t quite know why the existence of the other translation needed any pointing out since I doubt these people meant to make and display a purely medical banner.
Lmfao
For anyone wondering, it’s Er/Sie/Es (He/She/it)
This will be a fun thread for a Monday morning.
Imagine being so pressed about the existence of trans people that you make a whole banner about it to proudly display at a match like it’s something most people in that stadium care to see? What’s the point
Don’t trans people agree that there are 2 genders? They transition from one gender to the other. That’s why Buddhist counties like Thailand accept trans folks because in Buddhism it’s believed to be a good thing to experience life as men and as a woman.
Not really. Gender is different from sex. When someone says there are only two genders what theyre usually talking about is male and female
gender identity is much more of a spectrum and more distant from sex. Someones sex could be biologically male, but that doesnt matter as much as their gender identity is, idk feminine looking non-binary. And that excludes all the weird shit biology also does like intersex people
lol
fr
Yes and no. Some do, but many don’t believe in the gender binary and see it as a spectrum of countless genders.
You might be thinking of sexes, but some don’t even believe in 2 sexes. But that is mostly semantics, depends how you count any genetic disorder, intersex condition or mutation.
Don’t trans people agree that there are 2 genders?
No, and most experts don’t either. Gender is a purely social construct and arbitrary many can exist
I assume it is to stir up shit, get more rivalries going. Also looking at the twitter post to gain more fans? I saw this post yesterday and pretty much every highly liked comment under this picture was applauding the banner.
What’s the point
as with most political banners, internet ultras points, attention from the press and “credibility” for “defending their values”.
Extensive media coverage of every single controversial banner and internet hooliganism have made it so that even the shittiest and tiniest ultra group can make a 20€ banner to go viral amongst circles that cover stadium politics and, if it’s bad or controversial enough, even beyond that to the point where things make it to, say, big newspapers or reddit.
All this does bring the group a lot of visibility and “”““positive””“” coverage hence the reason why you’re constantly reading about this type of banner made by ultras groups from plastic clubs who are starved for any bit of attention and respect.Also the left has basically fled the stands in droves between the 70s and 90s all over Europe, there’s a few exceptions but most of these people genuinely hold these beliefs so writing them out for the world to see is kind of a win-win to them
👏
🤡
Relax, it’s just a bunch of raging populist right wing Germans seeking to erase the existence of people they don’t care for. When has that ever led to real trouble?
Somebody remind them there’s a difference between gender and sex
That very basic biological fact is way above the mental comprehension of these knuckle-draggers.
It’s not a fact though, it’s a belief that seems to be peddled by people of a certain political ideology.
You don’t believe in a distinction between biological sex and gender?
To be fair the german “Geschlecht” can refer to either gender or sex. Their message is pretty clear though.
I mean they are not wrong
Public information/education banners at football matches, whatever next!
I am a Leverkusen hater now.
goodbye, can you take your other friends with you too?
I mean it’s not the first time Leverkusen fans looked sketchy, makes me even more proud the Schickeria actively intigrated rainbow flags to their matchday material
Schickeria are just a top tier ultra group.
Mate they can’t support a pharmaceutical company
Looking in from the outside, I find that dynamic around Leverkusen and Wolfsburg (and Hoffenheim to a lesser degree) pretty interesting. Here we have PSV but I have never heard anyone consider it a fake club because of the company, disregarding the fact that Philips isn’t as involved as they once were.
You just kicked off a load of realisations about the PSV origins.
It never occurred to me that PSV was affiliated with Philips Electronics
TIL Phillips is from The Netherlands.
Didn’t they make the nazi gas?
Just you wait until we get the Met Police in the PL
Don’t think they’d want to be associated with rapists, fraudsters and cheats …
… aka the met police.
“We’re about to lose the best manager we ever had, how can we convince him to stay with the best fans in the world?”
“Lads I have a fantastic idea”
Outside the box, correction, gender thinking
I know this is a joke but Leverkusen is known to have no proper fanbase anyway
Surely Xabi isn’t the best manager they’ve EVER had
"We’re about to lose the best manager we ever had,
They had Heynckes not that long ago.
Based