The Bundesliga has had a problem for a long time: Bayern Munich’s dominance has overruled any competition at the top. The league representatives did not present a solution at the DFL General Assembly. A British author, of all people, has it. It’s at least unusual.
Little optimism, so it can be heard, came from the DFL General Assembly yesterday. The men’s Bundesliga, as has been said since the wonderful European Championship in England, has a problem: it only knows one champion. It has been called FC Bayern Munich for a decade and the record champions have no plans to change that in the future. The complete suspension of competition at the top always leads to new ideas, to new considerations.
Because in the end, it may be of interest to some fans who qualifies for the Europa League and who is relegated, but even the Champions League participants are the same year after year. The league remains at a standstill and is losing national and international importance. However, changes are not planned for the time being, announced DFL supervisory board chairman Hans-Joachim Watzke on Wednesday. “I don’t believe in overdoing it,” said the 63-year-old from Sauerland, whose club Borussia Dortmund almost became champions a few years ago – the greatest feeling in the league.
“There is quite a lot to suggest that whoever becomes champion after 34 matchdays deserves it,” he said, giving a clear rejection of the idea of ??using playoffs to counteract boredom in the league. He believes, said Watzke, “that we cannot expect any change in mode in the next few years”. Certainly not in the near future. No changes. Now. Bayern remains champion.
With their sophisticated transfer strategy this season and Dortmund’s bad luck in signing central striker Sébastien Haller, who will be out for a long time after being diagnosed with a testicular tumor, a title fight is unlikely this season either. The only question is when and not if Bayern Munich will become German champions. Then they are champions for the eleventh time in a row. Behind them, as always in recent years, BVB, RB Leipzig and Leverkusen qualify for the Champions League.
The author Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling and the former national player Marco Bode illustrate the problem in a book recently published by Werkstatt-Verlag called “Tradition schiebt kein Tore”. In the eleven seasons between the 2000/2001 and 2010/2011 seasons, a total of ten different teams finished in the top four in the Bundesliga. Including teams like Hertha BSC, Hamburger SV, Werder Bremen, VfB Stuttgart and Hannover 96.
In the following eleven up to the end of last season there were eight clubs. The club mentioned above were not included. In addition to the permanent guests Bayern and Dortmund, Leverkusen and Leipzig have established themselves at the top. Half, because Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim were added, operate under special conditions. HSV and Hannover 96, but also VfB Stuttgart and the league returnees FC Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen will no longer advance into the upper regions for the foreseeable future. The disappearance of traditional clubs is progressing.
So no playoffs and no competition, just empty phrases like “BVB just have to want it more” or “if Bayern stumble, RB Leipzig has to be there”. New ideas are needed. Bayern maintain a squad that is too strong for the league and completely trimmed for success in the Champions League. Borussia Dortmund is lagging behind, still paying more than most of the other clubs in the league, but also a lot less than Bayern Munich.
A UEFA report published in February 2022 showed Bayern player salaries at 262 million euros and Borussia Dortmund at 164 million euros. In total, the clubs in the first division paid 1.416 billion euros to the players. Bayern was thus responsible for 18.5 percent of all salaries paid in the league, BVB for 11.58 percent. The Bavarians were among the European leaders, Dortmund in the extended field of pursuers. The other 16 clubs shared the remaining approximately 70 percent. Sounds unhealthy. But nobody wants to turn the screws. The distribution of the TV money, which in particular separates the participants in the Champions League further from the rest of the league, remains largely unaffected.
Instead, the discussions are mostly about abolishing the 50-1 rule. This demand is presented with sheer ignorance on or by the boulevard. The majority of active fans, but also many clubs, reject this. So far, the 50 1 rule has kept most investors out of the Bundesliga. The sponsors have too little influence. On the one hand, this cements the situation in German football, but on the other hand it ensures that the major sports washing projects of the oligarchs (before the Russian attack on Ukraine) and countries such as Qatar or Saudi Arabia are carried out in other leagues .
Shortened and leaving out the Wolfsburg and Leverkusen works clubs as well as the Hoffenheim and Leipzig constructs: the Premier League has the sheikh club Newcastle United and the Bundesliga at most the Windhorst club Hertha BSC. The sheikhs add money, but stand for everything that gets football dirty. Windhorst, on the other hand, fails with modest means – in contrast to the state clubs – and has secured the capital club’s survival in the pandemic at most. And within the club there is now even a counterweight in the form of President Kay Bernstein, who is from the fan scene.
Playoffs ruled out, TV funds untouched and 50-1 untouchable. How should anything change in the Bundesliga at all? “Our league, our football is special. That’s why we need a special solution,” said Hopfen on Wednesday and it remains unclear what that means. Perhaps she had rummaged through the international press beforehand? There the British author Michael Cox chose a really special approach in a text for the portal “The Athletic”. The renowned author of several books has looked at the decade of Bayern dominance and applied a new standard.
What would actually happen if FC Bayern Munich started every game with a 0:1? Cox came to an amazing conclusion. Not that much, but at least a little more than before. Bayern would still have won three championships, but at least two equal competitors would have grown up in Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig. They too could have celebrated three title wins each. The people of Leipzig were even promoted in the 2016/2017 season. In this model, the last of the ten championships would have gone to the wonderful VfL Wolfsburg team in the 2014/2015 season. For the eleven from the Mittelland Canal, under coach Dieter Hecking, it was enough to win the DFB Cup.
Last season, new coach Julian Nagelsmann would not even have made it into the top four. Twelve points behind champions Dortmund, ten behind Leverkusen, two behind Leipzig and one point behind Union Berlin, this club from Köpenick, which has been boxing well above its actual weight class for years.
Cox’s proposal drew heavy criticism on social media. You can’t solve it all like that, the users of the networks called out to him and came with the old suggestions and well-known allegations towards Borussia Dortmund and the other “challengers” who just don’t want it enough. But Cox remained calm. He doesn’t watch the league anymore. “This is a waste of time,” he wrote. What is happening bores him. And that is one of the main problems of the league: the loss of international importance due to the devaluation of the championship fight.
At the same time, the fans in Germany are also losing interest. Responsible for this are, for example: the VAR, the rising prices of the countless TV subscription models, the sometimes unspeakable treatment of traveling fans by the police, the rising ticket prices, the aging audience in the stadiums, the lack of competition and the other leisure opportunities for young people . Solutions are not in sight. Not even after the DFL General Assembly on Wednesday, from which, as can be heard, little optimism emanated.
