Skip to main content
Getting lost in a football utopia
Dortmund

HELLO, how’s your week been? I’ve spent the last four days having a wonderful time in a football utopia, otherwise known as Germany.

Imagine a world where tickets to a Champions League game cost €18 bought officially on the day. Where you can drink anywhere inside and outside a stadium. Where fan culture is strong and powerful and appreciated, not watered down for corporate homogeny, or denied or overrun by overexcessive state power, rules and regulations, edicts and bans.

Where displays of pyrotechnics, smoke bombs and firecrackers are not only allowed, but encouraged and welcomed. Where using your mobile phone during a game is emphatically frowned upon, and people filming themselves on YouTube for personal gain mocked and given zero credence.

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Bukayo Saka celebrates scoring against Real Madrid, April 16
Men's Football / 17 April 2025
17 April 2025
Arsenal's Thomas Partey scores their side's first goal of th
Men’s football / 13 April 2025
13 April 2025
Arsenal's Declan Rice scores their side's first goal of the
Men’s football / 9 April 2025
9 April 2025
Two goal hero Declan Rice has been praised by Gunners manager Mikel Arteta after the game of his life
Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou
Men’s football / 5 April 2025
5 April 2025
Similar stories
An England fan holds a flag before a Group C match between D
Layth’s Take / 28 June 2024
28 June 2024
Turkey's Kerem Akturkoglu, covered by his teammates, celebra
Men's Football / 19 June 2024
19 June 2024
Real Madrid's Aurelien Tchouameni celebrates with the trophy
Men’s Football / 2 June 2024
2 June 2024
Erling Haaland during a trophy parade in Manchester, after t
Sport / 1 June 2024
1 June 2024
Our esteemed writer has his say on football’s best pie, most embarrassing moment, Manchester City’s 115 charges and more...