Red Bull Salzburg denied SV Austria access to “their” stadium, arguing it might challenge the field’s quality. Yet last season Red Bull welcomed 10 matches of other teams without problems.

Austria Salzburg can only hold regular games at their intimate stadium in Maxglan. The 2nd-league team needs to find an alternative venue for high-risk games like the ones against Wacker Innsbruck and LASK.

This is why the “Violet club” applied to use Red Bull Arena, the home of “Red” team Red Bull. And despite the arena being 100% publicly owned, Red Bull denied Austria the right to hold any home game there, because of supposed fears over field quality after too intensive use.

Austria Salzburg are now forced to seek their temporary stadium outside Salzburg, which according to the club is a very arguable policy by Red Bull. “If another club was allowed to play here three times in a season and we aren’t can only be treated as a double standard”, said Fredy Scheucher, CEO of SV Austria.

In 2014 Red Bull didn’t mind two clubs (SV Grödig and FC Liefering) playing 10 fixtures at Red Bull Arena. This year there were only two “non-Red Bull” games and still the energy drink franchise refuses to allow Austria.

The situation of course has an underlying issue. Red Bull Arena used to be the home of Austria until the club was destroyed by Red Bull. Thanks to great efforts of the community Austria was rebuilt and now plays in the 2nd league, being really close to Red Bull in the league system.