For years, while living around the Kaiserslautern area, I followed soccer to some degree. The local club (FCK)....had a long history in the Bundesliga (the top league). It's a club that has been around for over a hundred years, and has a major arena (big enough for 50,000 people).
From the early 1960s to 1996....FCK was 'locked' into the top league.
Around 1996....things started to fall apart.
The club has gone through the 2nd level league, and currently resides in the 3rd level league.
Right now? It's on pace to have a losing season....which means you get pushed into a no-name regional league. You start to reach entry tickets of five-Euro....meaning there's no profit for the arena folks. On a good day.....you might have 4,000 fans show up for regional-type games (you can imagine this scene in a 50k seat stadium).
This is one of the odd parts of the soccer business....if you really fail year after year....you keep getting pushed deeper and deeper into the mess. It's not a business model that you can plan much around or anticipate next season upon.
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