Football – The Wacker women’s fight for survival
When the women of FC Wacker Innsbruck were promoted to the Bundesliga in 2007, the world looked very different there. There was no talk of teams from SKN St. Pölten, Wiener Austria or SK Sturm, the league was dominated by SV Neulengbach. Wacker was the only club that had a Bundesliga team not only for men but also for women – and the only one west of Linz. Wacker was a pioneer.
Thanks to the modern training facilities that the women could use, Wacker established themselves as the second-best team in the league. From 2008 to 2010, the team finished second three times, and in 2012 they advanced to the cup final. Only when more clubs from men’s sport set up women’s sections did the women from Innsbruck slip into midfield.
broke in the summer
Today, Wacker is the laughing stock of the league. The team has not scored a goal after seven matchdays, last weekend they lost 0:16 against Sturm. The problems are not only of a sporting nature. Wacker could not even play the away games at Vienna and Austria. Once because there was not enough money for the trip to Vienna, the second time there were not enough players available.
What the team once gained from being part of a professional operation became their undoing. After several years of fighting for survival, FC Wacker Innsbruck GmbH filed for bankruptcy in June. This should only be responsible for the game operations of the men’s team, in July insolvency administrator Herbert Matzunsk reported: “If there were free funds in the club or in the GmbH, the most urgent liabilities were guaranteed.”
The women have been waiting since April for their expense allowances, and the fans paid for the away trip to Vienna at the end of last season, as captain Miriam Hochmuth explains. This complicated the relationship with the club. Many of her colleagues had enough in the summer: Eva Maria Dengg, Hochmuth’s predecessor as captain, left the club, as did top performers Jana Mayr, Sara Ito, Nina Haaser and Diana Lemesova. Haughtiness remained, however, and together with others they decided to remain loyal to the club, otherwise it would not have had enough players to start this season. “We have been assured that the year is fully financed,” says Hochmuth. But the team was unable to play the first away game in Vienna. There is no money for the bus.
No license
If there were a licensing procedure in the women’s Bundesliga like the men’s, Wacker would probably not have gotten permission to start. But such a regulation is missing in the statutes of the league. Anyone who qualifies through sport has the right to compete. And as the eighth of the year, the women from Innsbruck couldn’t take that away. “Of course we are not happy about the situation in Innsbruck,” says Isabel Hochstöger, head of the women’s soccer department of the ÖFB. “But we are working on a concept for licensing. Our plan is that we start in the 2024/25 season.” However, the association has one way of taking Wacker out of the competition. Its Judicial Code stipulates that if a team is unable to play a game three times in a season, an exclusion from the competition could be applied for. “After the two cancellations in Vienna, Wacker has already had two strikes,” says Hochstöger.
There WILL NOT be a third insured, Wacker team manager Thomas Mayr, who took over the post in September. The squad is now big enough, the last away trip before the winter break on Sunday (4.30 p.m.) to St. Pölten is fixed. “And in the spring we won’t have any more problems. Then we’ll also be competitive in sport.”
negotiations with the club
The women from Innsbruck have not yet given up the fight to stay in the league. They fight parallel to it, but also from a second one. “We want to be independent of the Wacker,” says Captain Hochmuth. “The club is struggling and looking to get the men from the fourth division up quickly. I understand that. But we want to look after each other.” It’s about being able to make economic decisions and acquiring sponsors yourself, without having to wait for the people in charge at the club. A first round of negotiations between the women’s section and the club officials took place on the national holiday. Hannes Rauch, who has been president of the association since August, did not take part, but is in the picture. On request, he spoke out in favor of the women remaining under the Wacker roof. “But of course we know that as an amateur club we can’t contribute much more financially.”
For Hochmuth and Mayr, who also advocates the financial independence of the women’s section, it’s about more than sporting competitiveness. In Tyrol there is no women’s team in the Bundesliga apart from Wacker. If the team were to disappear, there would no longer be a point of contact for the girls in the state. “Every federal state has managed to bring women’s football forward in the long term,” says Hochmuth, who herself came to Wacker in 2012 at the age of 15 and made her debut in the Bundesliga at 17. “We have to follow suit in Tyrol.”