24
What’s that Coming Over The Hill?
Oldheatonian+
Last month I had the pleasure of spending an evening with a group of supporters and
officials from SV Salzburg as they visited the North East and took in our league game against
Aston Villa. There is something special about mixing with fans from other countries and
listening to how they see football and how important it is to them; how passionate they are
for their club and what they will do to ensure that its name is not damaged or its history
tainted. However; the tale of SV Salzburg is something else and one that needs to be shouted
from the rooftops when calls are made for corporations to come in and rescue a club from a
belligerent owner. Here is their story.
*On the 6th April 2005 Red Bull took control
of the Salzburg Sport AG company and
therefore also took control of the football club
Austria Salzburg. Red Bull boss Dietrich
Mateschitz publicly introduced his football
advisor, Franz Beckenbauer, and the resigning
chairman, Rudi Quehenberger, announced he
was thrilled to see that "years of hard work
for the benefit of football in Salzburg" had
finally paid off.
The initial reaction to the takeover was
euphoric, even amongst the long-standing and
most loyal fan groups. No more than a handful
of fans harboured any feeling of foreboding as
regarded the possible course of events in the
following few months. However, during the
initial few weeks following the takeover the
first rumours of a break with the traditional
deep purple and white club colours began to
circulate amongst the fans. The talk was of a
new FC Red Bull kit in red, blue and silver.
This triggered demonstrations, petitions and a
flood of open letters to newspapers from every
corner of the Violett/Weiss fan community.
Despite several activities organised by the fans
in defence of club traditions the new managers
remained completely unimpressed. Although
the general assembly on the 4th June 2005
resolved to placate more traditional-minded
club members by supporting a decision to
keep the Violett/Weiss club colours, nine days
later the truth came out. On the 13th June
2005 the team for the new season was
introduced to the press and the general public
at a venue known as Hangar 7. The players
appeared with red and white home kits and
blue away kits. Deep purple had been erased
from the club’s identity!
To add insult to injury, instead of bearing
‘1933’, the club’s true year of foundation, the
management had decided the club had been
established in ‘2005’, something the Austrian
F.A. insisted be changed immediately. Being
the legal successor of the previous owner and
club title the official identity of the club had to
be maintained in order to entitle the club to
the license to play in the Bundesliga,
otherwise the newly-founded club would have
to begin life in the bottom division in the
country. Further evidence of this clean break
with all the traditions of the past, and proof it
was a completely new start, was to be found in
the player profiles; the profiles of players who
had played for Austria Salzburg in the
previous year: ‘Previous club: SV Salzburg’.
Red Bull Salzburg made it very obvious that
it saw itself as a completely new entity, with
quote: “with no history and no records", and
no longer wished to be associated with SV
Austria Salzburg in any way – other than the
fact that the club had served as a means of
obtaining the licence to play Bundesliga
football. These and countless other absurdities
led a large group of supporters, fan clubs and
sympathisers to launch the Violett-Weiss
Initiative (IVW) on the 30th June 2005. The
aim was to uphold the traditions of SV
Austria Salzburg, also within the new Red
Bull Salzburg environment. At first IVW
cause fell upon deaf ears. However, the more
the new ‘wonder team’ failed to perform to
their inflationary expectations, the more
column space was devoted by the press to the
so-called ‘club colours conflict’. Red Bull
strategists sensed the image of the club was
being damaged and invited the IVW to hold
talks.