One thing didn't go perfectly in the construction phase of the new DFB campus.

The luxury hotel Villa Kennedy closed its doors last year.

This had unpleasant consequences for the German Football Association and above all for its main attraction, the national team.

Because the DFB has lost comfortable accommodation in the immediate vicinity.

It sounds grotesque in view of a huge new building on a 15-hectare part of the former Niederrad racecourse, for which the DFB has invested 150 million euros with the support of the international football associations UEFA and FIFA - but the campus does not offer enough space to accommodate a national team.

This is not only due to the demand of today's generation of soccer stars to stay in single rooms.

Daniel Meuren

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Above all, the support staff of the teams, mind you for women and men, is now too large.

And so the national team will stay overnight in Gravenbruch, a district of Neu-Isenburg, when they stay here in September.

As strange as it may seem that the national team of all people will not be among the regular guests in Frankfurt, it is also logical: because the campus, as an urban home for the future of German football, is intended to develop talent in the youth teams of men and women.

For these years, which are still to be shaped and shaped, the effort is made in scientific work, which is now finding a real home for the first time.

A home for the DFB

The stars of tomorrow are to be trained on three complete training grounds and an indoor playing field as well as another half-playing field for goalkeeper training.

Its own gastronomy, a fitness center and the accommodation wing should provide the best opportunities for training courses for young talent.

There are also academy rooms for scientific analysis of the game.

"The DFB Academy as a central component, with its areas of training and innovation, is a service provider and a source of inspiration for German football," said Oliver Bierhoff, Managing Director of the national teams and academy, the driving force behind the project, at the opening on Thursday.

"Above all, the DFB has a home where coaches and experts come together." DFB President Bernd Neuendorf even described the campus as a "project of the century".

"Today we are not only inaugurating a new building, we are also establishing a culture of togetherness in German football," said the new DFB president, who was elected in March.

The open construction with only a few closed offices fits the transparency offensive of the DFB after the scandalous past decade.

The administration had already moved from the Otto-Fleck-Schneise to the campus three months ago.

The largest sports association in the world has started the construction of its new training center with some delay compared to the competition.

National associations such as the English Football Association and the French Fédération Française de Football have long trained their talents in training centers and attributed success to them.

When planning its academy, the DFB followed the English model in particular.

But the search for the right location set him back years.

The resistance to the closure of the racecourse, which was only eliminated with a referendum in 2015, slowed down the association.

The project has therefore lasted almost a decade since the first DFB decision was made in January 2013. The actual construction time was 39 months.

For planning and sports department head Mike Josef (SPD), the development in the sense of Frankfurt was just as right as it was important.

“I am very happy that the DFB is laying the groundwork for its future here in Frankfurt with its campus, remaining loyal to our city and giving German football a new center.

Frankfurt is the capital of sport and home to many large and small sports associations,” said Josef.

The sports association world contributes to the reputation of the city.

The SPD politician emphasized that the project was completed with a “great consensus among all those involved”, which was “not a matter of course”.

For him, who himself once played football in the Baden-Württemberg youth team, it is something special that the goal of all youth players is Frankfurt in the future.

"It will be the dream of every young person to come to this training center." After Peter Matteo had symbolically handed over the key to DFB President Neuendorf on behalf of the general contractor Groß & Partner, the first 22 young people from Frankfurt were able to fulfill their dream.

The B junior teams from SG Harheim and FFC Olympia 1907 competed against each other for the first official game on the pitch.

Of course, there was one flaw on the day of the opening: the game ended goalless