No nudity in football skyboxes during game.... Germany

Red card! Football club bans strippers from box owned by lap dance club (but they can perform once match is over)

By JOHN MCDONNELL
Last updated at 9:55 AM on 26th January 2011

Drinking and smoking may be permitted during matches in the liberal world of German football but it seems stripping is a red-card offence at one top-flight club - until the game is over anyway.

Newly promoted side St Pauli has told the lap dance club owners who bought one of their corporate boxes that strippers are forbidden from performing for guests before the final whistle has been blown.

Action was taken by senior officials at the Hamburg club after complaints by fans - many of who are firmly anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-sexist - about the actions of the owners of Susis Show Bar, who have installed a lap-dancing pole in their box at Millerntor-Stadion.

The owners of Susis Show Bar have been told that their strippers are not allowed to perform in their corporate box at the stadium of German football side St Pauli until after the match

St Pauli supporters said they were worried about the reputation of the cult club, which was the first German team to outlaw right-wing nationalist activities in its stadium back when fascist-inspired football hooliganism was the scourge of the game across Europe.

'We had a discussion with the owner of the box and made it clear there can not be dances during the matches,' St Pauli president Stefan Orth told German newspaper Bild.

'There can be performances after the matches, there can be dances, but they must not end up nude.

'If they dance just once naked, they will be out of here!'

Many of the St Pauli fans who regularly attend games at Millerntor-Stadion are firmly anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-sexist

It is not the first time the club has bowed under pressure from anti-sexist fans. 

In 2002, advertisements for the men's magazine Maxim were removed from the team's stadium following complaints about how they depicted women.

St Pauli enjoys a unique culture and owing to this it has an uncharacteristically large following for a relatively small football club.

For example, in the 2006/07 season when the side were promoted from the German third division, where average attendance at matches across the league is generally about 2,000, they regularly pulled crowds of 15,000.

A recent study estimated that the team, now playing in the Bundesliga, has roughly 11 million fans throughout Germany, making the club one of the most widely recognised German sides. 

The club promotes a friendly, welcoming atmosphere and claims to have the largest number of female fans in all of German football.

They have even opened a nursery at the ground so children of fans can be looked after while their parents watch the game.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350371/Strippers-banned-German-football-matches-St-Pauli.html#ixzz1CACV3OTO