What is hardly known is that SC Freiburg very nearly never reached the Bundesliga at all — because it very nearly ceased to exist. Between 1978 and 1982 the university city enjoyed the luxury of having two clubs in the 2. Bundesliga: newly promoted SC Freiburg and established Freiburger FC, German champions in 1907. But the public could not really be persuaded. “Two second-division clubs are one too many for the city,” SWR commentator Hans-Reinhard Scheu observed. FFC ran into financial trouble after the sudden death of patron Rolf Jankovsky and only received their licence for 1980/81 under strict conditions.
During that period the idea arose of strengthening the Freiburg football location by merging the two clubs. But merger? No, thank you.
SC boss Achim Stocker rejected it, despite persistent negotiations with the FFC side. His Sport-Club would have had to surrender almost its entire identity and even the naming rights. It came to nothing.
In 1982, unlike SC, Freiburger FC went down from the 2. Bundesliga. After years of ups and downs they ended up in the seventh-tier Landesliga Südbaden in 2009. In January 2001 SC bought the FFC’s stadium, the Möslestadion, in order to establish the Freiburg Football School there as a youth academy.
