German football federation (DFB) president
Theo Theo Zwanziger has criticized "commercial excesses" in the game
and the high wages paid to players, dpa
reported.
"We have to ask ourselves: can and do we want to allow ourselves (a
situation) that a sponsor or a sheikh buys a club and then sells it?" he
told Sunday's Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
"This model contributes to commercial excesses."
Zwanziger was critical of the takeover of clubs by wealthy investors and called
for Germany to retain a regulation preventing majority holdings by potential
investors.
"Sport is also business but it's more than business. Sport is also
solidarity," he said.
Zwanziger said he would fight to uphold the traditional German club system to
prevent any takeover of a Bundesliga club.
"The German club system which does not allow any sponsor or sheikh to be
the owner should not be broken up," he said.
The DFB chief said the "excesses of globalization" had also
contributed to players' wage levels which "must repel every normal mortal
person."
"If certain (wage) scales are reached that is for me immoral. No person
can be worth so many millions," he said.
...