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'Corporate interlopers' seek to boost their brand against Spurs

AFTER 11 years, millions of euros spent and plenty of feathers ruffled, Leipzig feel they have their moment.

Challenging Jose Mourinho and 2019 Champions League finalists Tottenham is exactly the kind of challenge — and marketing opportunity — that energy drink giant Red Bull must have created the club for.

There’s a lot at stake in Leipzig’s debut in the knockout rounds of the Champions League in London tomorrow. European success is a key part of Red Bull’s project and, on the field, it could be crucial if Leipzig is to persuade forward Timo Werner to stay.

In this breakthrough season, Leipzig is one point behind Bayern Munich in the German standings. But on the European stage, it’s been outshone by sister Red Bull club Salzburg, which reached the Europa League semi-finals in 2017-18.

Even in the Champions League, Leipzig’s flown under the radar, avoiding the continent’s biggest clubs. Lyon, Zenit St Petersburg and Benfica were its opponents in this year’s group stage — solid, but hardly title contenders.

In a decade, Leipzig has gone from the fifth division in Germany to the Champions League, dividing opinion all the way.

Many German fans — even those who resent Bayern Munich’s seven straight domestic titles — see Leipzig as an unwanted corporate interloper, more ambush marketing stunt than community club.

Unlike at most Bundesliga clubs, Leipzig’s fans have little say over how the club is run. The company and club managed to meet the 50-plus-one fan ownership requirement by issuing a small number of shares, buying 49 per cent of them, then pricing the rest prohibitively and choosing who could invest.

The management likewise pushes the limits of the rules on corporate branding. The RB on the logo officially stands not for Red Bull, but for the invented German word RasenBallsport — “lawn-ball-sport” — which is, naturally, rarely used by both fans and club marketers.

Of course, top clubs’ owners often have something to promote, whether its a country or a company, though Leipzig’s approach is less subtle than Qatar’s marketing drive at Paris Saint-Germain, or pharmaceutical giant Bayer’s backing for Bayer Leverkusen.

The latter case shows that, even in Germany, there are exceptions to the rule on fan ownership. Bayer, is allowed to bypass it – having bankrolled the club for at least two decades – as does Volkswagen with Wolfsburg.

But, on the pitch, Leipzig arrives in London on mixed recent form. A loss to Eintracht Frankfurt last month and a draw with Borussia Monchengladbach allowed Bayern to take first place in the Bundesliga.

After those stumbles, drawing 0-0 at Bayern this month was a welcome improvement, even if Werner missed an excellent chance to score a winning goal.

His finishing could be vital against Tottenham, especially on the counter, but he hasn’t scored in five games in all competitions.

Without Werner on form, Leipzig can’t come close to the attacking venom of Tottenham’s last German visitors, Bayern, who tore the north London team apart 7-2 in October.

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