When two people quarrel, the third party is happy: it is quite possible that the proverb will also come true in the dispute over the right location for the Frankfurt multifunctional arena.
So far, two locations have competed, and the respective supporters in politics and sport - the basketball club Skyliners and the Greens (as well as the CDU, which no longer governs in Römer) want to go to the Kaiserlei, the ice hockey club Löwen and the SPD to the airport - are moving not.
Things are done.
Now the head of the sports department, Josef, wants to cut through this knot with a new proposal.
The idea he presents is old hat.
Josef warmed up earlier plans and reassessed them in the light of changed framework conditions.
The area around the stadium was discussed more than 15 years ago for the construction of a multifunctional hall.
But the project failed at the time due to the financing and the competition with the Waldstadion, whose operators were planning their own major events beyond football.
The plans for a multi-purpose hall at the stadium came to nothing.
Soulless lions?
This is one of the reasons why the former head of the sports department, Markus Frank (CDU), stiffened in his search for a replacement site on the Kaiserlei on the border with Offenbach.
The plans for the stadium could not be realized a decade and a half ago.
But resourceful planners had already written the use of "multi-purpose hall" into the new development plan for the sports park.
That could pay off: the fact that a hall at this point is legally secured would make implementation easier.
However, the clubs are a problem.
The ice hockey club Löwen has become so committed to The Dome project that it now has to follow its investors who want to build their hall outside the city limits.
If the Frankfurter Löwen play in Kelkheim or Eschborn in the future, the local fans will say thank you.
It is strange when a club wants to dictate the location of its hall to a city.
Have the lions sold their soul?
Hope they get out there again.