They have hurled tennis balls and chocolate coins on to the pitch; they have disrupted play with remote-control cars and planes mounted with smoke bombs. In recent months German football fans have thrown almost everything they have into protests aimed at preventing foreign investors from increasing control of their much-loved clubs.
This week it appeared their dogged defiance, driven by deep-seated grassroots sentiment, had paid off, after the German football league (DFL), which runs the Bundesliga, dropped its plans to sell an estimated €1bn (£850m) stake in its media rights income to a private equity firm.
