DBU Bredde is a special interest organization for grassroots

association football in Denmark Association football is the most popular sport in Denmark, with 331,693 players and 1,647 clubs registered () under the Danish Football Association, Danish FA. The game was introduced into Denmark by British sailors. Kjøbenhavns Boldklub is the ...

( da, breddefodbold) and the six regional associations under the

Danish Football Association The Danish Football Union ( da, Dansk Boldspil-Union; DBU) is the governing body of football in Denmark. It is the organization of the Danish football clubs and runs the professional Danish football leagues and the men's and women's national t ...

(DBU);

DBU Bornholm DBU Bornholm (Bornholm Football Association da, Bornholms Boldspil-Union until 1 February 2011) is a district branch of the Danish Football Association, DBU Bornholm representing the Danish FA's football clubs on the island of Bornholm. The Danish ...

DBU Copenhagen DBU Copenhagen ( da, DBU København) is the local governing body for association football and futsal in Copenhagen, Denmark. They are responsible for the governance and development of men's and women's football at all levels in the region. DBU Cop ...

DBU Funen DBU Funen ( da, DBU Fyn) is the local governing body for association football and futsal on Funen and the surrounding isles, Denmark. They are responsible for the governance and development of men's and women's football at all levels in the region. ...

DBU Jutland DBU Jutland ( da, DBU Jylland) is the local governing body for association football and futsal in Jutland, Denmark. They are responsible for the governance and development of men's and women's football at all levels in the region. DBU Jutland is a ...

DBU Lolland-Falster The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a Power, root-power, and field quantities, power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose ...

and

DBU Zealand DBU Zealand ( da, DBU Sjælland) is the local governing body for association football and futsal on Zealand, Denmark. They are responsible for the governance and development of men's and women's football at all levels in the region. DBU Zealand is ...

. DBU Bredde is one of two formal members of the Danish FA (the other being

Divisionsforeningen Foreningen af Divisionsklubber i Danmark ( en, Danish League), commonly referred to as Divisionsforeningen or shortened to DF (or FDD), is a trade, special interest and employers' organization for men's professional association football in Den ...

), is subject to the laws and regulations of the national association, and elects two out of seven members to the board of the Danish FA. The nation-wide organization consists of a board of representatives and a board of directors (the chairmen of each regional football association and an observer), representing their member's political and strategic interests towards the

Danish FA The Danish Football Union ( da, Dansk Boldspil-Union; DBU) is the governing body of football in Denmark. It is the organization of the Danish football clubs and runs the professional Danish football leagues and the men's and women's national ...

, men's professional football represented by Divisionsforeningen (DF), women's elite football represented by

Kvindedivisionsforeningen Kvindedivisionsforeningen, shortened to KDF, is a Trade association, trade, Advocacy group, special interest and employers' organization, employers' organisation for women's professional Football in Denmark, association football in Denmark and the ...

(KDF),

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

s represented by

Danish Football Referee Association Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

(DFU), and the national and local municipalities. Areas of co-operation between the members include the education of

coaches Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coac ...

and referees, counseling on club development, and

volunteering Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group wikt:gratis, freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. O ...

. Founded in 1970 as Foreningen af Lokalunioner i Danmark (FLU), it was renamed DBU Bredde on 3 March 2019.

History

Founding, disagreements and new relegations

The organization was originally established as Foreningen af Lokalunioner i Danmark (FLU) in 1970 to promote co-operation on common affairs between the Danish FA's six regional football associations and to ensure the development of Danish grassroots association football. In 1981, it was formalized that the FLU became one of the two members of the national football association alongside the

(representing the Danish elite clubs). Beginning with the 1982-season, common tournament regulations at a regional level went into effect, although special rules for some of the regional associations meant that they were not completely aligned. Changes to a regional football tournament's rules had to be approved at the FLU's annual meeting, before they officially could take effect locally. During the 1980s, there were ongoing discussions between the elites and grassroots on how much influence the elite should have especially with regard to the number of votes the Divisionsforeningen should have at the Danish FA's Board of Representatives meeting and the number of representatives on the national football association's board – the grassroots clubs held greater representation than the Divisionsforeningen. In 1991, the FLU put forward a proposal for a structural change that would organizationally divide the Danish FA into a grassroots and an elite section with the Danish FA on top, which was confirmed the same year. The participants at FLU's Board of Representatives meeting held on 7 February 1998 at

Vissenbjerg Vissenbjerg is a town in central Denmark with a population of 3,297 (1 January 2023), On 3 March 2019, the name was changed to DBU Bredde after an approval by the Danish FA's board of directors at a board of representatives meeting. In the early years of professional football in Denmark, amateur clubs received up to DKK 30,000 in compensation, when a home-grown player signed his first contract with a Danish club. However, the

Bosman ruling ''Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Football Association ASBL v Jean-Marc Bosman'' (1995) C-415/93 (known as the Bosman ruling) is a 1995 European Court of Justice decision concerning freedom of movement for workers, freedom of association ...

abolished this so-called national transfer system, making it voluntary for Danish professional clubs to send so-called training compensation and solidarity constribution checks to amateur clubs for a player's development. In 2006, the FLU proposed a national transfer system inspired by

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

's rules for international transfers, that was implemented in 2001, and the national regulations already in use since 2005 and 2006 in

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

and

Norwegian football Association football, Football is the most popular sport in Norway in terms of active membership (by television viewership football comes third, behind winter sports biathlon and cross-country skiing (sport), cross-country skiing). The Football A ...

, but it was rejected by the Divisionsforeningen and never truly debated. On 26 January 2013, a new agreement negotiated between the FLU and Divisionsforeningen went into effect that guaranteed compensation financially via a fixed distribution key for amateur clubs' training and talent development, if a Danish football player signed a contract with a Danish professional club, and when the player was sold to another club.

Organizational reformation

As a consequence of the constant disagreements between the elite and grassroots members of the national association, it became publicly known ahead of the DBU's representatives meeting on 22 February 2003 at

Odense Odense ( , , ) is the third largest city in Denmark (behind Copenhagen and Aarhus) and the largest city on the island of Funen. As of 1 January 2022, the city proper had a population of 180,863 while Odense Municipality had a population of 20 ...

, that the DBU's management would be working towards structural changes, which included dissolving five of the existing regional associations and creating two new large units representing East and West Denmark, with the proposed border being at

Little Belt The Little Belt (, ) is a strait between the island of Funen and the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. It is one of the three Danish Straits that drain and connect the Baltic Sea to the Kattegat strait, which drains west to the North Sea and Atlant ...

, reducing the numbers of clubs in the Danmarksturneringen i fodbold and reducing the number of DBU board members. On 20 June 2015, a new agreement, referred to as ''Breddeaftalen'', regarding grassroots football was reached with the Danish FA, that would give the FLU more responsibility and greater influence with regard to children's and youth football, club counseling and grassroots education, among other things. These tasks previously lay with the grassroots department of the Danish FA at their offices in Brøndby. A central element in that agreement was to set up a committee to prepare a modernization proposal for a reformation of FLU with the intent of strengthening the political, strategic and administrative organization and grassroots football development. The proposal made involved reorganizing the FLU at a regional level to only include two new regional members in West and East Denmark by merging DBU Jylland and DBU Fyn into ''DBU Bredde Vest'', and merging DBU Sjælland, DBU København,

and

into ''DBU Bredde Øst'', which would officially take effect on 1 January 2022. The agreement on the reform was made on the condition that it was approved at delegate and council meetings in all six regional associations. Five regional associations had already voted in favor of the reform proposal in 2021. On 17 August 2021, DBU København voted against the proposal.

List of chairpersons

* Henning R. Jensen (1989–1998),

* Benny Hansen (1998–2009), DBU Jutland * Kurt Bagge-Hansen (2009–2014),

* Henrik Ravnild (2014–2018),

* Lars Albæk (2018–''present''),

References

{{Football in Denmark Football governing bodies in Denmark Sports organizations established in 1970