This story is from November 5, 2017

Premier German football club launches official fan club in Bengaluru

BVB Fan Club will be Borussia Dortmund’s first in India
Premier German football club launches official fan club in Bengaluru
BVB Fan Club will be Borussia Dortmund’s first in India
If you ask city’s football fans, die-hard or otherwise, what comes to their mind when they think about Borussia Dortmund, you’ll hear them say it’s their amazing fans, the boisterous atmosphere of their home stadium and their knack to consistently produce talented footballers from their youth system. The football club, founded in 1909 and popularly known as BVB, plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system, and is one of the most successful clubs in German football history.
Now, in a first in the country, BVB has chosen namma Bengaluru to launch their first ever official fan club.
Riding the wave
The timing to launch a fan club in the country is due to the increasing popularity of the sport, claims managing director of BVB Asia Pacific, Suresh Letchmanan. He says, “People’s interest in football and football-related events in the country has been steadily growing for the past couple of years. The Indian Super League and I League are seeing more and more fans, and India hosting the Under 17 FIFA World Cup has made the sport bigger than ever. And when you take a city like Bengaluru, which has one of the best club and fans in the country, football is big. The moment felt right to connect with the fans here and let them get to experience the BVB way of approaching football — not just as a sport, but also as a way of life.”
BVB is a people’s club
The club intends to not just make it an exciting fan experience by starting a fan club, but also contribute more the sport’s growing influence here. Julia Farr, who is a coach with BVB and runs a lot of football-related programmes for women for them, is one such example. She is here to run training camps in the city over the weekend for kids. Speaking about the club’s relationship with its fans, she says, “BVB is, at its very core, a people’s club. We don’t want to just start a fan club and forget about it — we instead want to build a relationship with the fans. Not just by way of match screenings and other fun activities, but also by looking to tie up with local football clubs and youth academies and help football grow at the grassroots level. The reason we feel a country like India can connect with a club like ours is because of our similar traits — perseverance, rich history and a strong connection to self-belief and culture.”

Fight for visibility
A big hurdle for the club, though, would be to provide more visibility for their live game fixtures, considering English, Spanish and Italian leagues are more popular here on TV than the German league. Suresh says, “That is a legitimate concern for us, and something that we alone cannot try to address. Competing for screen time with other popular leagues such as the English and Spanish is tough and will take time. The Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) and top German clubs all are making an effort to make Bundesliga more visible and accessible in India. Hopefully, it happens soon.”
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