SV Austria Salzburg — a background.
Originally founded in 1933 in Salzburg due to a merger of 2 local clubs, Hertha and Rapid, were a beloved club best known by SV Austria Salzburg, who played in an iconic Violet and white, and managed to win 3 Austrian Bundesliga titles. in 1978 the club changed its name to SV Casino Salzburg and again to SV Wüstentrot Salzburg in 1997, though on both occasions the club’s beloved purple kit was kept, and were still often referred to as Austria Salzburg. Arguably the club’s finest hour came in the 1993/94 season — in which the Austrian side beat teams including Sporting Club de Portugal and Eintracht Frankfurt on the way to the UEFA Cup final, though they were defeated 2–0 over 2 legs by an Inter Milan side featuring Dennis Bergkamp and Walter Zenga. The club continued to be a mainstay in the Austrian top flight until 2005, when the club’s identity would be wiped, and they would have to start over.
On the 6th April 2005 Austrian energy drink giants Red Bull purchased the club, and instantly rebranded the team, changing the name to Red Bull Salzburg. All trace of violent were removed from the logo and kits, with Red Bull’s logo becoming a fixture on the new look badge. In a pathetic attempt to please the “Violet-Whites” who were firmly against the reidentification of their club, Red Bull proposed that their new Goalkeeper’s kits could have violet socks on away games. This seemed like mockery to the supporters, as the offer was ludicrous. So the faction broke away and formed a new club, of the previous name, SV Austria Salzburg. At the start of the 2006/07 season the club joined the 2. Klasse Nord, Austrian Football’s 7th Tier. The club started to rise rapidly up the leagues, eventually reaching the 2nd tier, named the First Division, it has tailed off since then, with the club falling to back to back relegations into Liga Salzburger, the 4th tier. The club have also head a lot of debt problems, with debts of over €900k in November 2015, a highly unsustainable figure for a team, who in reality are minnows.
Red Bull, on the other hand, have enjoyed mountains of success at domestic level. Having won the Österreichische Fuβball-Bundesliga on 9 occasions since their rebranding in 2005, have nurtured quality players such as Liverpool’s Sadio Mané, and acquired a feeder club, FC Liefering, who play in Austria’s 2nd tier. Apparently because buying out one Austrian club wasn’t enough.
So Red Bull’s Footballing empire currently contains 5 clubs: The aforementioned Salzburg, America’s New York Red Bulls, who are actually based in Harrison, New Jersey, Brazil’s RB Brazil, Salzburg’s feeder side Liefeirng, and German side Rasenballsport Leipzig (Named so to get around Germany’s ban on sponsors in club names — Note that Bayer Leverkusen are exempt from this ruling as the club were founded for staff of Bayer Pharmaceutics to play football after work, and the club has never been acquired by a foreign party in the same way as Austria Salzburg and RB) And clubs such as Austria Salzburg and SSV Markranstadt, who were sacrificed to make way for RB Leipzig, are casualties in their footballing masterplan, to the dismay of supporters and football purists worldwide.
