Nikolas Muci and GC want to establish themselves more in the city of Zurich. image: keystone/shutterstock
Last in the Super League and in the midst of an identity crisis, Grasshopper tries a poker game to get closer to his supporters.
Grasshopper is doing very badly. Sportingly, first: the Sauterelles are last in the Super League, with ten points in fifteen games. But that’s not the worst.
GC has been suffering from a serious identity crisis for several years.
He has very little audience (7,000 spectators on average, counting large) and no longer arouses any enthusiasm in his city. The club has even been forced to live in exile since 2007, the year of the destruction of its legendary stadium, the Hardturm. Since then, the “Rekordmeister” (27 national championship titles) has played his home matches at Letzigrund, the stadium of his great rival, FC Zurich. One more affront.
During each meeting at Letzigrund, the GC ultras display the banner “In exile at every match”.Image: ostadium
GC hit rock bottom in 2019, when they were relegated for the first time in their history. Despite his return to the Super League two years later, the divide has widened further with the supporters. The fault lies with the arrival of Chinese investors in 2020, who saw in this historic club just another business and nothing better than the satellite of Wolverhampton, an English Premier League team that they also owned. The catastrophic sporting results (rescue in the play-off last season) have not helped anything.
So the new American owners – who arrived at the beginning of the year – are trying to repair the breaches. To bring Grasshopper closer to its fans. To achieve this, they even decided to physically make this idea a reality.as reported by Daily Gazette:
Last Thursday, executives announced that GC’s headquarters will return to the city center of Zurich. It will be inaugurated in early 2025.
They specified, in their press release:
“GC is the oldest football club in Zurich. With the new headquarters, we are once again bringing the club and the city’s supporters, who still make up the majority of subscribers, closer together.”
The Grasshoppers will therefore migrate to the Schifflände district, on the banks of the Limmat and a stone’s throw from the cathedral.
The new GC premises, in the city center
And Grasshopper will not only have a simple visual presence thanks to its new premises. He will organize press conferences there and set up workstations for his employees.
The “Rekordmeister” offices left the city in 2005, moving to the brand new training complex in Niederhasli, a suburb. At the time, this move was the pride of the club, which saw it as a possibility of development, including in terms of its image. 19 years later, the Sauterelles have taken a big leap back. (yog)
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