German football magazine 11FREUNDE will NOT cover RB Leipzig’s Champions league semi-final as they blast ‘imitation’ club and quote comedian saying ‘their success reminds me of children cheating at computer games’
- RB Leipzig reached the Champions League semi-finals on Thursday night
- German magazine 11FREUNDE will not cover the last-four clash on Tuesday
- Leipzig has received criticism for selling a product and not being a football club
- They were fifth-tier side SSV Markranstadt before being taken over by Red Bull
A popular German football magazine has revealed it will not be covering RB Leipzig’s Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain in protest against the Bundesliga club.
11FREUNDE revealed that they will abstain reporting on the club’s match on Tuesday, after Julian Nagelsmann’s side beat Atletico Madrid 2-1 in the quarter-final on Thursday evening.
RB Leipzig, who were called SSV Markranstädt before being taken over by Red Bull in 2009, has received intense criticism from the German football community since then for selling a product and a lifestyle instead of being a football club.
A German football magazine will not be covering RB Leipzig’s semi-final against PSG next week
11FREUNDE took aim at the club after it rose to prominence after investment from Red Bull
A statement from 11FREUNDE said: ‘RB Leipzig is in the semi-finals of the Champions League. Normally we would have to cover that. But RB is not a normal club. Even if many have forgotten that.
‘We decided against it – once again – because we don’t want to normalize the RB Leipzig construct any further.’
SSV Markranstadt were a fifth-division side before they were taken over by Red Bull GmbH and RB Leipzig have risen through the divisions thanks to serious investment from the owners.
Leipzig were fifth-division SSV Markranstadt before being taken over by Red Bull in 2009
The ‘new’ club finally reached the Bundesliga in 2016 and finished in the Champions League places after just one season in the German top-flight.
The club now stands just two wins away from a first ever European title, after announcing Nagelsmann as their coach at the beginning of the 2019-20 season.
The statement continued: ‘There’s nothing romantic about the way the Leipzig squad is put together.
11FREUNDE criticsed signings like Youssef Poulsen when the club were a third-tier side
Julian Nagelsmann (middle)’s side are just two wins away from the Champions League title
‘Nobody speaks badly of the Leipzig scouting. But which other third division team has ever spent €1.55 million on a player (like Leipzig 2013 for Yussuf Poulsen)? In other words: a highly talented man like Yussuf Poulsen was never a real ‘third division player.’
‘And which other second division could have paid an Emil Forsberg (who was courted by top international clubs) in 2015?’
Max Dinkelaker, who wrote the piece, also claims that ‘their success reminds me of children cheating at computer games’.
Red Bull have several other investments in football, including RB Salzburg in Austria, the New York Red Bulls in Major League Soccer and Sao Paulo club Red Bull Brasil.