Franconia

 

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vs. Raetia (4:2) | Friendly | 2014 in Franconia

There is quite a bit of history behind the Franconia representative side ("Franken-Elf") that briefly existed from 2014 to 2015ish. Initially, a football coach from the region read about CONIFA and got the idea of setting up a team for the Franconia region, as there was no chance for talented players in the region to ever play internationally. The idea was that of a development squad. Young players who would get international exposure to hopefully learn from it and one day possibly thrive in the German national team. Sounds good for you? Well, not for the German FA! The Bavarian FA, the regional sub-body of the German FA, went absolutely mad about it. They were strongly against the "seperatists" and threatened that everyone associated with it will never get a chance to play league football in Germany again.

That did indeed scare aware the founder of Franconia. After weeks of media campaigns in both directions, he eventually got the coach of an official, Bavaria FA supported, Franconian team that would play once every other year against another team from Bavaria, but promise to never play internationally. But one man who got involved in the meantime, didn't have it. He found it to be unfair and narrow-minded of the German FA and instead went ahead planning the first match of an actual Franconia FA. The opponent was soon found in Raetia and sponsors jumped on board, too. The match was going to be a charity match for homeless people in Germany.

So, the match went ahead. I was helping in planning it. The German TV was around and it did get quite some coverage. But the Bavarian FA was furious. Their president - who was also the German FA vice-president - opened the Annual General Meeting of the German FA with the claim that he "has successfully prevented Franconians to play internationally". I am not sure what he was bragging about, but it wasn't true, obviously, as the match went ahead. But he did use everything in his power to prevent it. He threatened clubs that they will get thrown out of the league system, if they rent the pitch to the Franconians. They threated every single player. And he even called me, telling me that I will never play a role in the German FA governance in my life. Which is true, but I obviously never wanted to anyways. Following the match, the Bavarian FA then indeed threw sanctions at everyone involved. The coach lost his license, the players had to pay a penalty fee and the organisers had to settle an even heftier fee. That almost killed the Franconia FA, which only played a handful of matches after this.

The story is absolutely ridiculous. The FA, which is there to promote football in its country, did try to forbid and ban it. Luckily, they lost, at least in the short run. Franconia set an important example that you cannot ban people to play football.

Now, I was heavily involved with all this, but never got my hands on a shirt. It was only now, in 2024, that Luke Reaser actually bought a shirt from them, which reminded me of asking them again. They sold me one for 50€ and I do now own this piece of German history. It was matchworn in the match vs. Raetia.