German football fans have a daily newspaper dedicated to the game for the first time with the launch of "FussballBild" ('FootballBild'), to coincide with the resuming of the Bundesliga season, on Friday.

Retired Germany striker Lukas Podolski, who now plays for Galatasaray will write a weekly column which he says will be "technical, professional, but also written with humour".

The 32-page 'FussballBild' will be published from Monday to Saturday and costs a euro ($1.06).

The content will be pooled from the 23 regional editions of Bild.

The tabloid-format daily has been tested since the start of the season in Munich and Stuttgart, but from Friday has been distributed nationwide.

It has been launched by the Axel Springer media house, one of Europe's biggest media groups, which publishes Germany's most popular daily newspaper Bild, which sells a 1.8 million copies.

Unusually for a country where football is by far the main sport, a sports daily newspaper has never taken root in Germany.