The Association of German Football Coaches (BDFL Bund Deutscher Fußball-Lehrer e.V.) and the German Football Ambassador Association (Deutscher Fußball Botschafter e.V.) will intensify their cooperation in the future and enter into an official partnership.

The BDFL – founded in 1957 – is the professional association of German football coaches with A-licenses or football teacher licenses and has more than 5,000 members. Its main tasks are the further education of coaches as well as representation of the profession and public relations.

Founded in 2012, the initiative, from which the association German Football Ambassadors Association emerged in 2016, honours and awards German coaches and players who contribute to the positive image of (soccer) Germany in the world through their appearance abroad. Since 2013, 21 different German coaches have been nominated in the main category, almost all of them members of the BDFL, from which the following winners emerged: Holger Obermann, Monika Staab, Jürgen Klinsmann, Gernot Rohr, Horst Kriete, Gert Engels and Jürgen Klopp. In the past, there have also been coaches who have won the prize of honour – including Dettmar Cramer, Otto Pfister and Bernd Schuster.

The annual award ceremony of the German Football Ambassador in May is the highlight of the season: All nominations are determined in advance by a top-class jury headed by “kicker” publisher Rainer Holzschuh, also responsible for the Honorary Award. This is also where the new cooperation with the BDFL comes in, whose suggestions are always very welcome and who is also involved in the selection of the nominations.

BDFL President Lutz Hangartner: “As a coaches’ association, we support and promote the idea of the Association of German Football Ambassadors (Verein Deutscher Fußball Botschafter e.V.) in an idealistic way: coaches abroad who, through their exemplary commitment, make their contribution to building bridges, breaking down prejudices and promoting the positive image of Germany through the power of football to offer a stage”.

“To carry the good idea further into the world and to honour the commitment of deserving coaches abroad only works with strong partners. We are delighted to have the BDFL on board as a competent coaching association,” said Roland Bischof, who, as the initiator, has been responsible for setting up the German Football Ambassadors Initiative over the past seven years with a great deal of passion, private funding and the active involvement of his agency “presented by gmbh”.

(Deutscher Fußball Botschafter e.V.)