FC St. Pauli continues with “From the Field to the Fanshop”

FC St. Pauli continues with “From the Field to the Fanshop”

On Saturday (21 January), Catharina Fricke and Bernd von Geldern from FC St. Pauli travelled to India together with representatives from other clubs to support the initiative “From the Field to the Fanshop”. The aim is to provide local cotton farms with financial and structural support to convert to organic production.

With the aim of producing a team sports collection that is as sustainable as possible, FC St. Pauli has launched its own brand “DIIY”. With this, the club has taken a new path in terms of ecological, economic and social sustainability and made the production of its own sportswear as fair as possible. Thus, all cotton articles at DIIY are 100% GOTS certified. In addition, a self-imposed code (SCoC – Social Code of Conduct) ensures a binding contract for all partners.

Together with representatives of Arminia Bielefeld, Eintracht Frankfurt, 1. FC Union Berlin, Hamburger SV, VfB Stuttgart, VfL Wolfsburg, Borussia Dortmund and SV Werder Bremen, FC St. Pauli in India now also wants to support the initiative: “From the field to the fan shop”. The cotton farms are to receive financial and structural support and gradually develop into farms that grow exclusively organic cotton.

Among other things, Catharina Fricke (Head of Product) and Bernd von Geldern (Head of Business) will meet small farmers, visit factories for processing the raw materials and attend a sports and youth festival. In addition, the aim is to gain an impression on the ground and create an exchange.

“All parties can benefit from an exchange and together ensure that textile production becomes more sustainable,”

Bernd von Geldern (Head of Business)

The project “From the Field to the Fan Shop” was launched by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) together with the textile company BRANDS Fashion. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is implementing it in practice.

The initiative also provides for offers for children and youth sports in the Indian growing regions. Young women and girls in particular are to benefit from the programme. The BMZ uses the programme specifically to increase educational and job opportunities, improve health, promote gender equality and work towards peaceful coexistence in developing and emerging countries.