March 28, 2024

ELF and GFL: Football Revolution or a Pile of Broken Glass?

Critics fear the German football will be dismantled

DrAt that time, 30 years ago, they called it the “Big Bang.” There was a great roar when the World American Football League started. In Frankfurt, at the Galaxy professional club matches in what was then known as the Waldstadion, I witnessed an unprecedented booming performance at a German sporting event. But that is from National Football League (NFL) from the US funded project, which later started as NFL Europe, was in red and disbanded in 2007.

Now the International League has started again: the European Football League (ELF). At the end of June, eight teams, six of them in Germany, will play their first matches and take US national sport in Europe to a new level in a league that largely follows NFL rules and is modeled on the franchise system. .

Proximity to NFL Europe

Five names of the team indicate proximity to what was then called NFL Europe: Frankfurt GalaxyBerlin thunder, Cologne leaders, Hamburg sea devils, Barcelona’s dragons. Then there are the Leipzig kings, the Stuttgart scorpions, and the Wroclaw cheetahs from Breslau in Poland. Unlike the NFL in Europe, where almost only Americans played, in ELF local players have to be first and foremost. The number of professionals from the home country of this sport is limited to four per team. These are not professional teams yet, but according to the league they compete under “professional” conditions.


Presenter and former football player Patrick Essom is the new League Commissioner.
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Bild: Portrait of the Alliance


TV presenter Patrick Essum as ELF commissioner and media entrepreneur Zeljko Karajica (Sports & Entertainment Holding) as CEO wants to conquer the continent with some kind of soccer revolution. Most recently, the league made a coup and signed former NFL player Kasim Edibaly for the Hamburg C Devils. First hit: 13 league matches were broadcast live on Pro Sieben Maxx and ran.de.

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