Volker Ratzmann
The FIFA as the New Urban Management Agency? The Case of Berlin
The mass event of the FIFA World Championship is firing the imagination of security politicians in the Federal Republic of Germany. The FIFA's bold security demands in the football arenas provide a pretext to decrease the high prerequisites are usually required in accordance with the rule of law whenever the state interferes with civil rights. The standards that usually have to be met in order to justify intrusion are thus minimised. A total security check of anyone who gets close to the arenas is being enforced beyond legal justification and control. It can be expected that this pattern will be conferred to other mass events beyond the arenas. The state requires private enterprises to ensure total control and thus evades constitutional requirements that would otherwise be necessary to justify intrusions of this kind. Politically, the Word Championship amounts to a rollback to pre-constitutional ages: King Soccer is an absolutist ruler.
Volker Ratzmann is the chairman of the Berlin Bündnis90/Die Grünen (Green Pary) and criminal defense lawyer. His research and work interests are civil and human rights. He is active in many fields of urban politics in Berlin and beyond.
Back to the abstract list