“Old-man’s football doesn’t interest me either,” Meira Werner says to the camera. The content creator, moderator and amateur footballer from Berlin responds in a reel to the latest remarks by former pro Mario Basler. When asked about his Bild column from 2011, he recently reiterated in a SWR interview the statement that football is not a sport for women. Werner attributes the sexist outburst to the aging footballer’s waning relevance.
For Basler, time seems to have stood still well before 2011. Not only on the pitch have the dynamics shifted. On social media too, young women with football content are gaining influence.
Story posts from the curve or insights into the professional daily life: Influencers have become a fixed part of the media economy surrounding football. Unlike in traditional sports journalism, football is usually told through the lens of the fan, the player or the entrepreneur. Here the boundaries merge at times. However, this area of reporting remains largely male-dominated. With a new generation of young female creators, this picture is increasingly changing.
Meira Werner, for example, has roots in the amateur scene and gained journalistic experience at Berlin’s traditional outlet Fußball-Woche. For content, she crossed the capital and stood at the sideline in the Regionalliga, currywurst-romance included. Today she reaches a growing community on her own channels with content ranging from stadium vlogs to socio-political takes. There she critically contextualizes the planned FIFA Club World Cup for women in Qatar. In addition to her digital presence, Werner herself plays for 1. Eintracht Spandau—the newly founded women’s team of the influencer-led club.
Away from Aesthetic Perfection
Coach Nina Lange, a former player for 1. FC Union Berlin, is also active on social media. Since she ended her playing career in 2023 due to injury, she has been online reporting on women’s football. In her videos Lange analyzes current industry topics behind a streaming microphone. Her posts quickly found a growing audience; on TikTok around 102,400 people follow her.
That players online give insights into their daily lives is an established practice, as the example of Premier League star Alisha Lehmann shows, who serves her more than 15 million followers primarily with professionally staged glossy content.
The new generation of German football creators, however, chooses a different approach that mirrors the general trend among Gen-Z influencers: Instead of aesthetic perfection, here increasingly one’s own opinions and personally relatable insights come to the foreground. For instance, creator and FC St. Pauli player Jeannie Wagner films herself dancing in the locker room or emphasizes family moments with her father at the Millerntor Stadium.
These women epitomize a shift in the football cosmos. It is no longer only about a sporting rapprochement of the sexes; the media are slowly reorienting as well. However, issues from classic sports reporting persist online. Werner explains: “In the football creator industry, moderators and creators often pay close attention to their aesthetics and their look.” Women are thus still reduced to their appearance. Especially when creators with professional competence appear and topics previously associated with men—such as fan culture or amateur football—are addressed, they encounter rejection. The abuse extends into the analog world: at their games Werner is constantly harassed and insulted. Other amateur female players with a social media presence fare the same.
Particularly for channels that combine typical influencer content with critical analyses, the question of conflicts of interest arises. Werner is aware of this tension. For brand collaborations she weighs every decision. Not long ago she rejected a deal with a major player. It did not align with her values. It is the attempt to navigate between substantive claims and market logic. Increasing reach, in any case, does not automatically mean structural equality. Werner says: “We need more women in expert roles to whom professional competence is attributed.”
