Please follow suit! Suddenly, men's football is supposed to be geared towards women

The celebration is over, leaving behind a bittersweet mix of sadness and memories. The Women's European Championship was a bombshell of emotions – all the more so because we will never experience such an event on our doorstep again. Women's football has also outgrown the local conditions and will seek larger stadiums in the future.

The European Championship final weekend coincided with the start of the new men's Super League season . Two days after Spain defeated Germany in the semifinal at the Letzigrund Stadium, FC Zurich lost to Sion at the same venue. Afterward, garbage containers were set on fire at a tram stop, and in another incident, police used rubber bullets against FC Zurich supporters. The contrast to the colorful European Championship fan marches was painful, and the outrage was immense.

It doesn't have to be that way, we don't want that, thought seven female security directors, led by Stephanie Eymann from Basel, among many others. In a letter to the Swiss Football Association and the Swiss Football League, they expressed their wish, no, their demand, that "in the future, men's football in Switzerland must emulate the joyful and peaceful competition of women."

The European Championship has truly demonstrated, in a fascinating way, how differently football and its rituals can be interpreted. It was beautiful! It was touching! It could have gone on like this forever. But the idea that Bundesliga fans will imitate the European Championship fans in the future is, unfortunately, completely illusory. They have about as much in common with the national team supporters as opera lovers have with metalheads.

Isn't it a bit strange? After years of rightly insisting that women's football not be compared to its men's counterpart, they're now happily and peacefully lumping everyone together: young male curve-goers who test their strengths in a group every week, pushing boundaries in the process. And event fans who dress up as cheese.

That may be an exaggeration, but anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of fan culture knows that supporters of national teams represent a completely different social class. There were no burning containers at the 2008 Men's European Championship in Switzerland and Austria either.

The Women's European Championship hasn't exposed archaic masculinity rituals in club football; we've known about them for a long time. But it has made them even more difficult to bear. In the future, however, these problems won't be alleviated by pleas, but rather by the arduous struggle for improvements, with constant setbacks.

Let's reminisce about the fan march in Bern, let's watch Riola Xhemaili's goal against Finland for the hundredth time. Let's be sad that it's over and glad that it was more beautiful than our wildest dreams. But flower power for ultras? Let's forget it.

An article from the « NZZ am Sonntag »