In addition, the jury gave recognition to the offices of Bolles + Wilson (Münster), LOOC / M (Frankfurt / Main) and Schulte-Frohlinde (Berlin) for their work.

On 29 June 2011, at a joint press conference between the City of Dortmund and the DFB Football Museum, it was announced that the offices of HPP Hentrich-Petschnigg + Partner, Düsseldorf and pmp Architekten, Munich, were equally awarded first place in the international architecture competition.

Based on the jury's recommendation, the final winning design was determined in subsequent discussions[4] and published on 26 September 2011 in the daily press.

[12] In February 2017, professional football manager and former player Thomas Tuchel and humanities scholar Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht lead a philosophical discussion about the beauty of the game.

[23][24] The Association of Taxpayers Germany criticized the use of public funds for a museum classing the expenditure as "too much tax money for a minor matter".

[30] Alison Smale, chief correspondent of The New York Times, criticized some exhibits showing periods of German history for not providing complete perspective on certain subjects noting: "The national team from 1941 is shown with Nazi salute before the game against Sweden.

A notorious propaganda film from 1944 shows the Jewish inmates in the Nazi ghetto Theresienstadt [...] playing football and allegedly leading a relaxed life.

[31] High ticket prices for the museum has been the cause of complaints from fans and is cited as a contributing reason as to why the expected number of 300,000 visitors per year has not been reached.