After the entirety of the German national side went on strike this week, Dublin University Football Club’s (DUFC) Sebastian Fromm made his senior international debut for the team this weekend. Fromm was one of a raft of emergency players drafted into the side at short notice to face Chile, as a dispute between the players and the Deutscher Rugby-Verband (DRV), the German Union, resulted in the existing national side making themselves unavailable for selection for the game, one of the side’s Autumn Internationals.
The centre, a student of human health and disease at Trinity, had previously appeared for the German sevens team before featuring this weekend as a substitute for the full international side in their 32-10 defeat to Chile in the November Internationals.
The dispute arose from a disagreement between the DRV and Dr Hans-Peter Wild, the benefactor of the German national team who has invested over €30 million into German rugby over the last decade. Wild, who owns French Top 14 side Stade Français, cut his funding to the union as part of the conflict, and with it the full-time training programme which had been installed some six months ago.
Captain of the side, Sean Armstrong, said in a statement this week that the players had decided this week to “speak up and make ourselves unavailable for Saturday’s game”, emphasising that “groundbreaking changes” are necessary in order to ensure that “15’s rugby has a future” in Germany.
Thanks to Wild’s backing, German rugby has made huge progress. The Wild Rugby Academy was established in October 2007, and now competes in the European Continental Shield, one tier below the Challenge Cup, as Heidelberg RK. The national team play in the Rugby Europe Championship, a level below the Six Nations.
The side that faced Chile on Saturday came together for the first time on Thursday, two days before the game. More than half the group were uncapped going into the game, and Chile’s victory, a huge upset in objective terms, was ultimately not a huge shock.
President of the DRV, Klaus Blank, described the decision of the striking players as “unacceptable” in a press statement. DRV Director of Sport, Manuel Wilhelm, was similarly unimpressed, stating: “I am all the more irritated by this step because there is a written agreement with the GFR on the availability of their employees for the three friendly matches, which is now not being complied with.”
