The Colour Pink

By: Jan | May 9th, 2008

Football in Germany has long been savoured as one of the last male refuges. As such anything pink has so far been exclusively reserved for Tim Wiese and his skin tight goalkeeper jerseys. But the times are changing and through the years more and more girls started to wrap their minds around the passive offside rule and began heading to the stadiums. The male fan had to get used to the fact that the drunk and swearing person to his right could now be a woman. The club bosses got used to the fact that a whole new market segment opened up to them, ready to finance their expensive squads. And they updated their fan gear accordingly.

For Eintracht Frankfurt fans their club has now gone one step too far though. In times where their beloved Waldstadion has been completely re-branded to Commerzbank Arena, the name and colours (black, white and red) of the club become ever more valuable in defining its’ identity. And a pink and white scarf doesn’t really fit in here. So Frankfurt fans have now started a “STOP PINK!” campaign. In their words:

By wearing a fan-scarf you identify with your club and with its colours. Which colours do you identify with, when this scarf has the colour pink? In most cases the wearer of this scarf isn’t making his/her mind up about what they are expressing with it.

Pink is not one of Eintracht’s club colours!

So you can throw your support behind this campaign by signing their petition, or you could discuss it here in the comments.

via: 5 Freunde im Abseits

Category: 1. Bundesliga, Eintracht Frankfurt

Tags: 1. Bundesliga, Backstory, Eintracht Frankfurt, Miscellaneous

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Comments  

• Abby |  May 9th, 2008 at 4:55 pm

  
  
  

  As a girl football fan, pink-colored garb for us is utterly ridiculous. We don’t need to be pandered to. We are just as capable of liking (and wearing) scarves in the proper colors of the club. It’s completely stupid.

  (Hertha has a light-blue girl’s scarf. Which is still ridiculous, but less so as at least light blue is blue.)

  Posted from United States

  

• diana |  May 9th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

  
  
  

  ‘We are just as capable of liking (and wearing) scarves in the proper colors of the club. It’s completely stupid.’
  Abby just took the words out of my mouth.

  Actually, there used to be at one time when pink is my favourite colour. But that was when I was still a little girl. It’s blue now, by the way.

  Posted from Singapore

  

• Anna |  May 10th, 2008 at 12:59 am

  
  
  

  WORD.

  Even if I liked pink, which I don’t, I wouldn’t want to wear a pink fan-scarf. Why? Because my club’s colours are white and red. Not pink. And also because the idea of everything especially made for women having to be pink is something that makes me feel insulted.
  I don’t mind if a hand-full of fan-things are made for women – I love the idea of “ladies”-jerseys (which Stuttgart sadly don’t have) because the average football jersey looks on me like I’m wearing a bag. But that difference is something football executives apparently are too lazy to understand.

  Posted from Germany

  

• Anna |  May 10th, 2008 at 1:16 am

  
  
  

  And I love what they’re saying on the site of the campaign:
  “Frauen wollen in der Männerdomäne Fußball ernst genommen und gleich behandelt werden. Warum brauchen wir dann Fanartikel extra in „Girlie“-Farben?”
  “Women want to be taken seriously and treated equally in the male domain of football. So why do we need fan-products in “girlie-colours?”

  Exactly.

  Posted from Germany

  

• diana |  May 10th, 2008 at 5:36 am

  
  
  

  True, Anna.

  Oh well, sometimes it can be a little tough being a female football fan where the world of football is dominated by males. You have to prove to people that you know your football. People thinking you watch football just because there are cute guys running around on the pitch. That is not the reason why I am a football fan. If the footballer’s talented, he gets my vote.

  “Women want to be taken seriously and treated equally in the male domain of football. So why do we need fan-products in “girlie-colours?”
  Totally agreeing with that one.

  Posted from Singapore

  

• Juliet |  May 11th, 2008 at 6:19 pm

  
  
  

  A fan is a fan. By setting us apart like this, our commitment seems marginalized. I think they’re trying to be more “fashionable” with this move, but it just looks silly. I don’t want to look like a fan of Palermo, for pete’s sake.

  I wish the clubs would sell more things that are cut for women and more stores would pick them up. It’s impossible to get a Bayern or German team jersey in the US that’s cut for women. A youth XL is as close as I can get.

  Posted from United States

  

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