Club Partnerships & Sports Projects

The club partnership between the Japanese Urawa Red Diamonds and Eintracht Frankfurt was formally established during the Japan Tour in 2022. After a press conference and jersey exchange, the teams competed in a friendly match in the Saitama 2000 Stadium as part of Eintracht Frankfurt’s international tour. The cooperation between two top-flight clubs from Germany and Japan builds off of a shared history of players who have represented both sides, including such greats as Uwe Bein, Uwe Rahn, Naohiro Takahara and current Eaglebearer Makoto Hasebe. The Urawa Red Diamonds have helped Eintracht Frankfurt to develop its brand in the Japanese market, while Eintracht will leverage its position as the Bundesliga’s foremost club in terms of digitalization and innovation to support Urawa in creating new digital business models. The partnership between the clubs also includes the exchange of sporting expertise, youth development programs and delegation visits, international club tours, and communications, sponsorship and corporate responsibility activities.

Eintracht Frankfurt is committed to the development of international talent, and further implements this principle through the youth academy in Shenzhen, China. The city, with its ultra modern infrastructure and business landscape offers strategic opportunities in terms of global partnership and digitalization, makes it an ideal location to expand the brand. The sporting setup of the Eintracht Frankfurt (Shenzhen Nanshan) Football Academy grew in terms of teams and players as compared to the previous year: Three licensed coaches are in charge of five teams conducting 19 weekly training sessions in total. The age groups are U15, U13, U11, U8, U8 (girls) and special goalkeeper training groups with 120 players in total. The operating partner is the Nanshan Foreign Language School.

The curriculum is applied in close coordination with the mothership in Frankfurt. After China abandoned its zero COVID strategy, the focus is set on different kinds of school tournaments, school leagues and friendly matches, too.

The Eintracht coaches are accompanied by six Chinese assistants who are being instructed in the daily business and are fully integrated into the conceptualization, decision making process and implementation on the pitch: learning by doing. The coach education is complemented by monthly joint virtual lectures held by Nicolai Adam.

Eintracht player and brand ambassador Makoto Hasebe is running his own Football school under the label “Makoto Hasebe Sports Club” in his hometown of Fujieda, in the prefecture of Shizuoka. Hasebe and Eintracht agreed to team up in order to provide those age groups dropping out of the MHSC scope a pathway to professional football. For that purpose, Eintracht and MHSC established the “Eintracht Frankfurt Academy Japan” registering a U13 team in the regular Japanese competition as a first step. The implementation of the project started with Nicolai Adam showcasing Eintracht’s football philosophy onsite with a series of youth and coach clinics in the fall of 2022 and throughout March of 2023. In the meantime, MHSC scouted the team and on April 1 2023, the academy officially kicked off. Since then, Eintracht coach Marc Schweinshaupt is leading the project on-site with one team, twenty players and 5 assistant coaches, all of them licensed, to whom he is teaching the Eintracht approach continuously throughout the season.

Throughout the year, Eintracht Frankfurt sends UEFA Pro-licensed coaches throughout the globe to run soccer clinics in order to introduce Eintracht’s sporting philosophies and engage in cultural exchange. These clinics range in their intensity in order to appeal to a larger audience and reach a wider group of people who either already love soccer, or are just getting introduced to the sport. These clinics are part of Eintracht Frankfurt’s ongoing international youth development programs and global community outreach efforts.

The “Bundesliga Dream Thailand” is a DFL driven initiative in collaboration with the Sports Authority of Thailand, the FA Thailand and Bundesliga’s media partner PPTV HD 36. In order to foster youth development and likewise promote the Bundesliga in Thailand, the program consists of four steps: (1) selection of a U16 team made up of seventeen Thai talents through a collaboration of SAT, FA and the participating Bundesliga clubs, (2) two weeks of training in Germany under the direction of the participating Bundesliga clubs at their respective Youth Academies, (3) three friendlies against the U16 teams of participating Bundesliga Clubs, and (4) an extension week for two selected players, each one at a different Youth Academy of the participating Bundesliga clubs.

The overarching long term goal is to support the Bundesliga’s pathway for Asian players and to identify the first Thai in many years to make his way into the Bundesliga while at the same time increasing awareness for the Bundesliga brand through a documentary and content pieces produced by Bundesliga media partner PPTV HD 36.

Eintracht Frankfurt participated in the selection process in Bangkok and hosted the program from May 12 until May 19 2023. The test match took place on May 17 against Eintracht’s U16 team (5:2). Furthermore, cultural experiences and the attendance of the Bundesliga match between Eintracht Frankfurt and Mainz 05 (3:0) were part of the schedule.

Eintracht Frankfurt hosted the Vietnamese women’s national team leading up to the Women’s World Cup in 2023. While visiting Frankfurt, the national team trained using Frankfurt’s facilities during closed practices and then participated in a friendly match against Eintracht’s U20 women’s team. The match was a positive display of sportsmanship, high level competition, and sporting performance, bringing both the Vietnamese community in Frankfurt and the general community together for an afternoon of cultural appreciation and cooperation through sport.