Football?s coming home! The right decision: Dortmund will be the location of the new German Football Museum

Nearly one month ago, but especially regarding Dortmund important to mention! Of course our city has a lot of attractions and a decision for a next one was made in April.

The German Football Federation (DFB) called a special congress on Friday, April 24th to decide about the location for the new German Football Museum. 14 cities had originally pitched as the venue for the football museum. The chairmanship had then narrowed down the choice to candidate cities from the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia. On Friday only two finalists remained: Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund. And in a 137 to 102 vote, Dortmund prevailed. A very lucky day for our city and for sure a sad day for Gelsenkirchen, hometown of our archrivals Sch...e! But from their 51 years without a win of the German championship it's not a new feeling for Sch...e's supporters to come off second-best!

After the decision the DFB explained that the key to Dortmund's win was the location of its proposed museum site. Gerhard Langemeyer, Dortmund's Mayor said "We're providing the best available piece of land in our inner city!" And that is absolutely right. The site for the new museum is located in front of Dortmund's central railway station, very close to other museums, the concert hall and the pedestrian zone. Gelsenkirchen had proposed to build the museum near Sch...e's stadium, roughly five kilometers north of the city centre. Maybe, for Sch...e fans an attractive location, but indeed only for them!

Start of construction in Dortmund's city is planned for autumn 2010 after the results of an architecture competition. Total investment for the new museum will be around 30 million euro. The German federal state of North Rhine has pledged a 15.5 million-euro investment in the project, and the DFB will spend a further 11.5 million. DFB General Secretary Wolfgang Niersbach calculates: "If everybody pays seven euros to get in, and we get more than 200,000 visitors a year that we expect we'll be in the black!"

One reason more for sightseeing in Dortmund! A combination of a BVB match together with a visit of the football museum will be warmly recommended!

Henry, 21.05.2009