ZDF Skips World Cup Opening for Trump-Bashing and Ads

Despite having years to prepare for the tournament, the state-funded network prioritized advertising revenue over coverage of Thursday evening’s opening festivities, according to Nius. While 80,000 spectators inside the legendary stadium and countless viewers worldwide watched the full ceremony unfold, German audiences tuned to ZDF found themselves staring at commercial breaks.

For a full seven minutes, football fans across Germany were subjected to advertisements before the broadcast finally cut to Mexico City, where performers Shakira and Burna Boy were already presenting the official World Cup anthem. By that point, ZDF had already missed half of the opening show. Viewers of MagentaTV, operated by telecommunications company Telekom, saw the complete ceremony from the beginning.

The decision sparked immediate outrage on social media. One viewer questioned on X why ZDF would broadcast over two hours of pre-match discussion only to air commercials during the actual opening ceremony. German audiences completely missed performances by Danny Ocean, J Balvin, and Lila Downs.

The broadcaster receives approximately 2.1 to 2.5 billion euros annually from mandatory license fees, plus at least 150 million euros from advertising and sponsorship. Despite this substantial public funding, ZDF opted to use special evening advertising slots to maximize commercial revenue during one of football’s most anticipated moments.

Technical incompetence compounded the advertising debacle. ZDF reporter Lilli Engels was scheduled to share impressions from the German team’s quarters, but instead footage from a press conference with Jonathan Tah and Nico Schlotterbeck appeared on screen.

Anti-Trump Agenda Takes Priority

According to Nius, neither technical problems nor force majeure caused the embarrassing failure. The issue stemmed from the broadcaster’s financial priorities and its peculiar editorial focus. For weeks leading up to the tournament hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, ZDF coverage emphasized not sport but opportunities to cast U.S. President Donald Trump in a negative light.

Public broadcasters seized every chance to attack the American president in their World Cup programming. ARD journalist Ingo Zamperoni traveled through what he called “Trump’s America” for a documentary titled “Spielfeld der Macht” (Field of Power), claiming that some people would not attend the World Cup due to fears of being targeted by ICE agents or becoming victims of attacks.

Even on opening day, ZDF refused to abandon its fixation on Trump. The network’s “Countdown” program featured not only 2014 World Cup winners Per Mertesacker and Christoph Kramer, but also former football coach Christian Streich, whose presence had little to do with sporting expertise.

Political Activist Gets Platform

The 61-year-old Streich spent his entire coaching career at a single club, SC Freiburg, with a modest list of achievements. His inclusion in the studio was based not on professional credentials but on his political positioning, Nius reports. The former coach is firmly aligned with left-wing views and known for his “Haltung” (political stance).

During the coronavirus period, Streich accused people who declined experimental vaccines of not understanding democracy. Ironically, he received the Memminger Peace Prize in 2025 for supposedly defending fundamental rights and standing against xenophobia and discrimination.

Streich had previously delivered an angry speech defending a criminal migrant from Afghanistan, describing him as “a boy who did something very bad” and demanding that the case not be generalized, though no one had done so. Following publication of Correctiv’s controversial story about the Potsdam meeting, which the outlet branded a “secret plan against Germany,” Streich predictably declared that anyone not standing up had understood nothing, claiming it was “five minutes to midnight.”

During the ZDF broadcast, Streich delivered exactly what the network wanted. He claimed the United States, while still a democratic country, was increasingly sliding into autocracy due to leaders who act autocratically, prevent democratic processes, and disregard the judiciary. He spoke of autocracy and lack of separation of powers, despite recent examples of Republican lawmakers blocking Trump initiatives and courts repeatedly halting presidential actions.

The broadcast represented yet another instance of German public television prioritizing political messaging and commercial revenue over its core responsibility to deliver comprehensive sports coverage to license-fee-paying viewers.

With information from Nius