DFL further develops sustainability guidelines for German professional football
26 January 2024 – Sustainability guidelines have formed an integral part of the licensing process in German professional football since the start of the current 2023-24 season. Within the scope of gradual further development, the clubs in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 decided to make amendments to these guidelines at the DFL Members Assembly in December 2023, in order to incorporate the initial learnings and to strengthen key areas in which action can be taken. The proposal for amendments to the licensing for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons were drawn up together with the Sustainability Commission, which comprises representatives from ten clubs who discuss sustainability issues in depth and advise the DFL Executive Committee on this topic.
As a first step, the sustainability criteria for licensing for the 2024-25 season were further strengthened and defined in more detail. In the interests of consistency, overlaps with regulations of other licensing criteria have been harmonised and adapted to other aspects of the DFL licensing process. In addition, thematically related criteria will be bundled together within the sustainability guidelines so that unnecessary duplication can be avoided, and the number of criteria can be reduced without compromising on the content of the requirements. Certain criteria are listed as B criteria as defined by the licensing regulations; failure to meet these criteria will result in sanctions. The number of such criteria will be gradually increased to ensure that the clubs are committed to consistently raising their level of ambition. This also gives all clubs the opportunity and obligation to continuously develop and expand their structures with a focus on the future.
The sustainability guidelines for the 2025-26 season have also already been adopted in line with this continuous further development and to enable the clubs to make the necessary preparations. For the first time, all clubs will then have to provide independent proof that they comprehensively fulfil the sustainability criteria within the scope of the licensing process. This replaces the self-disclosure that was previously sufficient for some criteria. Consistent proof that all criteria have been met must be provided by 15 March, or by 1 March for candidates from the 3. Liga.
These steps follow the fundamental commitment of the DFL Members Assembly towards sustainability in three key dimensions (ecological, economic, social), which were agreed in May 2022. At that time, the clubs had already included sustainability in the preamble to the DFL e.V. Articles of Association and decided that the related licensing criteria should be gradually further developed. It was on this basis that the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 became the first major professional football leagues to anchor mandatory sustainability guidelines in their licensing regulations.