Soccer 'Show'

 The Frankfurt soccer club (Eintracht) won the European Cup (basically crowned the champ of 2021, delayed because of Covid) here in the past couple of days.

So, the plane flew back from Spain....landed in Frankfurt and there was this huge event for the team in the center of town.

Now, I'll describe this as what I saw (HR, our public TV folks, carried the whole thing live).  This must have gone on for 4 hours.  

I'd describe as the 'circus' arriving in town.  

Getting from the airport to the mid-town area?  Normally, you'd be talking about 25 minutes in rush-hour traffic.  This took about two hours to reach the destination because of tons of people coming out on the roads leading to mid-town.  

So they finally get to the city hall area, and then this 'funny' business starts up with the Lord-Mayor (Feldmann, SPD). 

I got the impression (watching live), he (the mayor) wanted some orchestrated situation with him in full control.  Every 'movement' was crap, and at various times....it felt like some puppet-show.

Walking down the hall with the two key players carrying the trophy.....he (the mayor) wanted them to hand it him....so he could present it to them (it'd already been presented by the Cup organizers).  This was some goofy moment, and I kept thinking.....there just needs to be a minute or two of Mayor-speak, and then get out of the way.

The stuff on the balcony?  Well....players and the mayor were allowed.  Security kept the CEO and the sports director of the team....off the balcony area.

The permission for the parade into town?  That went through several negation attempts, with the city just not being agreeable.  At some point, the team finally said 'enough'.....we won't do it in the middle of town, it'll be over at the stadium (about halfway between the airport and mid-town).  

At that point, the city realized all political-gain from the parade would be lost, and backed off the parade route deal.  

Then the issue of convertible cars (being thirty of them) was too many.....so the city dictated only 15 convertibles could be used (why it mattered has never been explained).  So there were 15 convertibles and some truck hauling the remaining folks following the convertibles.  

Frankfurt being highly politicized?  Oh, I'd say for the past decade.....this has been increasing in intensity.  A fair number of people will say that the city is a comedy show (long before this parade business occurred).

Just about every element of change/evolution within the city.....has to be negotiated to some degree, with the city political folks getting some plus-up, or being seen as the change-management (nothing could happen without them in the middle).