Friedrich Merz and Women’s European Championship: The Chancellor only has time for the final

It is a kind of initiation rite for new Chancellor. With a visit to an important football game, the head of government goes to the emotional reach of his people: I am also a person and fever with you. Angela Merkel’s uninhibited goal celebration at 1-0 in the group game against Poland at the 2006 World Cup, a few months after her chancellorship began. Olaf Scholz also surprised in the summer of 2022, just half a year in office, with a completely unscame interview in the half-time break of the women’s European Championship. For the German team it ended as lucky as Scholz’s chancellorship later.

Now Friedrich Merz would also have liked to flown to Zurich for the women’s European Championship semi-final against Spain, but has an appointment with Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday evening. However, if Germany prevails against Spain, Merz can be expected in the final.

What are the requirements for this? Unlike Gerhard Schröder, who worked out the nickname field at TuS Talle, no football heroic heroic heroism from Merz’s years in the Sauerland. In terms of height (1.98 meters), he could have handed over a goalkeeper, on the other hand, he suffered from his tendency to jump too short for decades.

Merz is a follower of Borussia Dortmund and with her also Sauerland managing director Hans-Joachim “Aki” Watzke. Merz was on the BVB advisory board for a good ten years. In 2007, when Merz went out politically, ex-DFB President Gerhard Mayer-Vorfeld proposed him as head of the football league. Merz declined: “I don’t see my professional future in football.”

But his return to the political business Merz led over some sports field again years later. In August 2021 he was a guest at the second stadium discussion of FC Hennef. The stadium grandstand, it was said in a press release, was fully occupied with around 230 spectators. “The well-known politician”-Merz had failed for the second time a few months earlier in trying to become CDU boss-“spoke about various national and international topics.” Merz also won his nomination as a candidate for the Bundestag in 2021 on a grandstand: Because of the Corona Unit rules, the CDU Hochsauerland chose in the “Große Wiese” stadium in Arnsberg.

In the pandemic, BVB fan Merz emerged with criticism, which may not happen to hit Bayern by chance. In September 2020, he attacked the leadership team around Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who had settled on the grandstand of the Allianz Arena without masks and distance. “Stupidity or arrogance?” Merz scolded in the “Bild” newspaper. In September 2021, he demanded kickers like the Bayern star Joshua Kimmich, who rejected a Corona vaccination, to prove a ban on play. “This country,” says Merz, “must be consistent at some point.”

Merz ‘has remained as a mascot since he was involved in politics again. He appeared twice to the decisive games in the stadium: In May 2023, Dortmund played the championship against Mainz in front of his eyes. In June 2024, BVB lost the Champions League final against Real Madrid in Merz’s presence. But nobody knows better than the CDU chairman Merz that sometimes it takes three attempts.