Over the last several days, a delegation from the City of Bremen, along with representatives from politics, business, sports, and other sectors, has been visiting South Africa. SV Werder Bremen was also part of the trip, which included visits to numerous social institutions, most recently the Hout Bay United Football Community and a Safe-Hub run by AMANDLA. Werder also represented the Bundesliga during the trip.
The journey to South Africa included many remarkable encounters, from scientific institutions such as the various universities in Durban, to environmentally friendly companies like BORDA, sports-focused projects such as the Sportgarten in iSithumba, and finally, the Hout Bay United Football Community and AMANDLA’s Safe Hub.
"Sport builds bridges and offers new prospects for young people – that’s something we’ve experienced firsthand during our trip through our partner city Durban. I’m all the more pleased that Werder Bremen intends to intensify its activities in South Africa and support the Sportgarten in iSithumba, a long-standing partner project of Sportgarten Bremen, offering new opportunities to young people through sport. With this, the club will not only promote sports projects but also make a positive contribution to strengthening social and civil cooperation between our cities," said Bremen’s Mayor, Dr. Andreas Bovenschulte, reflecting on the past few days.
While the delegation led by the Mayor stayed in Durban on the final day of the trip, Dominik Kupilas, representing SV Werder Bremen during the South Africa visit, travelled to Cape Town. There, Werder's Head of Fan & Business Development visited the Hout Bay United Football Community (HBUFC). In addition to a “stadium tour” through various townships and the community’s sports grounds, and an insightful exchange with the founders and executives, the programme also included a coaching workshop for HBUFC coaches. Incidentally, like SV Werder, HBUFC is part of the Common Goal movement.
The final stop of the trip was a visit to AMANDLA’s Safe-Hub in Cape Town. This wasn’t Werder’s first encounter with the Bundesliga partner. Back in 2019, during their winter training camp, the Green-Whites visited a Safe-Hub in Johannesburg. This time, Werder returned as an official Bundesliga ambassador for a training session, which also included a virtual panel discussion with Günther Stoxreiter, strength and conditioning coach of the men’s Bundesliga team.
“For us at Werder Bremen, it was a great honour to be part of the delegation trip,” said Kupilas, who added: “The visit was a perfect opportunity to nurture existing relationships while also creating new connections. On top of that, we had the chance to introduce our internationalisation strategy to the delegation participants, and we received a lot of positive feedback about it. South Africa is a key target market in our internationalisation strategy, and we aim to promote it through various activities in the future. Gaining firsthand experience of the local conditions was not only a unique experience but – especially within the context of this special trip – a great privilege.”
