In the world of German professional football, where millions watch and billions flow, the rooms where decisions are made remain almost entirely male. A new audit of the Bundesliga and its second division finds that just nine of 94 senior leadership positions are held by women — a number that has grown, but only barely. History was made when Tatjana Haenni became the first female CEO in Bundesliga history, yet such milestones, as those who study these structures warn, can quiet the urgency for change even as the deeper architecture stays largely untouched.
German Football's Management Remains Overwhelmingly Male Despite Modest Progress
Visible exceptions create an impression of progress that reduces pressure
Mark
So nine women out of ninety-four top management positions—that's roughly ten percent. Is that actually progress, or is it just the baseline we should have reached years ago?
Mimi
It's both, honestly. Three more women than last year is real movement. But Kraus's point cuts deeper—these appointments get celebrated as breakthroughs, which can actually slow down systemic change because it makes people feel like the problem is being solved.
Luke
I want to push on the numbers though. The study says four of eighteen new hires were women. That's twenty-two percent. But we don't know if those four stayed in their roles, or if they're concentrated in certain types of positions—like women's football management versus CEO roles.
Mimi
Fair. Haenni's CEO appointment is genuinely historic. But you're right that we should know whether women are being hired into the same kinds of power as men, or into narrower lanes.
Mark
What about the grassroots comment? Kraus said stagnation at the grassroots level is real. What does that actually mean for the future?
Luke
That's the part the article doesn't fully explain. If young girls aren't seeing women in leadership at local clubs, they're less likely to pursue management careers in football. It's a pipeline problem.
Mimi
And the Women's Bundesliga's independence could theoretically help with that, but only if clubs actually hire women into those new management roles. Right now, men still coach most women's teams.
Mark
So Euro 2029 in Germany—is that actually a lever for change, or just wishful thinking?
Luke
It's a moment of visibility and pressure. Whether it translates to real hiring depends on whether clubs face actual consequences for not diversifying. The study doesn't tell us if there's any enforcement mechanism or if it's just an aspiration.
Der Puls
- Twenty-nine of thirty-six top German football clubs have not a single woman in senior management, revealing how thoroughly power in elite sport remains a male inheritance.
- The appointment of RB Leipzig's Tatjana Haenni as the first female Bundesliga CEO made headlines, but critics warn that historic firsts can paradoxically relieve pressure on institutions to pursue systemic reform.
- Women now hold nine of ninety-four top management positions — up from six the prior season — with four of eighteen new hires in 2025-26 being women, a pace that remains glacial relative to the scale of the imbalance.
- Even in women's football, which recently gained independence from the German Football Association, men coach ten of fourteen Women's Bundesliga clubs, exposing how gender exclusion persists across the sport's own divisions.
- With Germany set to host Euro 2029, advocates see a narrow window of opportunity, though structural barriers and a grassroots pipeline still largely closed to women cast doubt on how much that moment will actually move the needle.
In the world of German professional football, where millions watch and billions flow, the rooms where decisions are made remain almost entirely male. A new audit of the Bundesliga and its second division finds that just nine of 94 senior leadership positions are held by women — a number that has grown, but only barely. History was made when Tatjana Haenni became the first female CEO in Bundesliga history, yet such milestones, as those who study these structures warn, can quiet the urgency for change even as the deeper architecture stays largely untouched.
German professional football's leadership remains almost entirely male, according to a new diversity audit released this summer. Of the 36 clubs in the country's top two divisions, 29 have management teams composed exclusively of men. The nonprofit Football Can Do More, conducting its third annual survey — and the first in which all 36 clubs participated — found just nine women among 94 senior management positions, up from six the previous season.
The modest gains were driven by new appointments during the 2025-26 season, when four of eighteen open top positions went to women, a marked improvement over the prior year's single appointment. The most prominent of these was Tatjana Haenni, who became the first female CEO in Bundesliga history upon joining RB Leipzig in late 2025. Nicole Kumpis of Eintracht Braunschweig remains the only female club president across both divisions. The nine women currently in senior roles span a range of functions — from finance and legal at Schalke to sports and sustainability at Werder Bremen to vice presidencies at St. Pauli.
Yet Katja Kraus, co-chair of the Football Can Do More advisory board, urged caution about interpreting these appointments as evidence of genuine momentum. Visible breakthroughs at the elite level, she argued, can create a false impression of progress that actually reduces pressure on institutions to address the slower, structural stagnation beneath the surface.
The imbalance extends into women's football as well. Despite the Women's Bundesliga's recent separation from the German Football Association — a move intended to open new pathways — men still coach ten of fourteen clubs in that league. A separate finding added another dimension to the picture: fewer than three percent of supervisory board members across all 36 clubs are non-German, suggesting that ethnic and national diversity lags even further behind gender representation. Germany's hosting of Euro 2029 has been identified as a potential catalyst for change, though observers remain measured about how much a single tournament can shift deeply embedded structures.
German football's upper management remains almost entirely male, according to a new diversity report released this summer. Of the 36 clubs competing in the country's top two professional divisions, 29 have management teams composed entirely of men. Only seven clubs have broken that pattern by placing women in senior roles.
The nonprofit organization Football Can Do More released its third annual audit of gender representation in German professional football. This year marked the first time all 36 clubs in the Bundesliga and second division participated in the survey. The numbers tell a stark story: just nine of the 94 positions at the highest management level are held by women. That represents an increase of three from the previous season, when six women occupied such roles.
The modest gains came largely from new appointments made during the 2025-26 season. Four of the 18 people hired into top management positions were women—a significant jump from the prior year, when only one of 19 open positions went to a woman. Tatjana Haenni's appointment as CEO of RB Leipzig in late 2025 marked a historic moment: she became the first female chief executive in Bundesliga history. Nicole Kumpis of Eintracht Braunschweig remains the only female president among the 36 clubs. A third woman, Kathleen Krüger, was appointed to a senior role at HSV after the study's data collection ended, which would have pushed the total even higher.
The nine women currently in top management roles work across various functions. Luise Gottberg and Hanna Obersteller both serve as vice presidents at St. Pauli. Petra Saretz holds an executive board position at Heidenheim. Union Berlin has two women in senior management: Jennifer Zietz oversees women's football, while Katharina Kienemann serves on the executive committee. Svenja Schlenker manages human resources at Borussia Dortmund. Christina Rühl-Hamers handles finance, HR, and legal matters at Schalke. Anne-Kathrin Laufmann directs sports and sustainability operations at Werder Bremen.
Katja Kraus, co-chair of the Football Can Do More advisory board, cautioned against reading too much into the recent appointments. She noted that while these individual successes are real, they can create a misleading sense of momentum. "Visible exceptions create an impression of progress that reduces the pressure on what is actually a sluggish structure," Kraus said. The organization's analysis suggests that isolated breakthroughs at the elite level mask deeper stagnation at grassroots levels of the sport.
The gender imbalance extends into women's football as well, despite that sector's growing independence. The Women's Bundesliga recently separated from the German Football Association to operate as its own entity, a move that theoretically opens pathways for more women in leadership. Yet men still coach the vast majority of women's teams. Only four of the 14 Women's Bundesliga clubs—Cologne, Union Berlin, Werder Bremen, and Hoffenheim—have female head coaches.
One other striking finding emerged from the study: fewer than 3 percent of supervisory board members across the 36 clubs are non-German, suggesting that international diversity lags even further behind gender diversity in German football's power structures. The organization expressed hope that Germany's hosting of Euro 2029 might prompt clubs to accelerate their diversity efforts, though structural barriers remain formidable obstacles to meaningful change.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
Visible exceptions create an impression of progress that reduces the pressure on what is actually a sluggish structure.— Katja Kraus, co-chair of Football Can Do More advisory board
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