The early knockout of the German football team not only hurts the players in sporting terms. Financially, too, the players return home empty-handed. The bonus catalog that has become public provided six-digit sums for the players – if they had played a little further.
After losing the preliminary round at the World Cup, the German national soccer players missed out on a whopping Christmas bonus of up to 400,000 euros per man. Captain Manuel Neuer, Thomas Müller, Joshua Kimmich and Ilkay Gündogan had negotiated this record bonus with the DFB leadership around President Bernd Neuendorf in the event of winning the title in Qatar. With 26 players, that would have cost the association a total of 10.4 million euros. In addition, the bonuses for the coaching team led by Hansi Flick would have been unknown. After the early knockout the DFB players go away empty-handed.
So the DFB saves high expenses – but only at first glance. Because of the sporting failure, the association also missed out on millions in payments from the world association. FIFA will pay the equivalent of around nine million euros to the 16 teams eliminated after the group stage. In addition, each of the 32 national associations that qualified for the World Cup received €1.5m before the tournament to cover preparation costs.
In the event of success, however, completely different sums would have flowed into the DFB coffers. FIFA is paying out the equivalent of around 440 million euros in prize money at this World Cup. The world champion receives 42 million euros, the defeated finalist 30 million euros. Third place is rewarded with 27 million euros, the loser of the match for third place gets 25 million euros. Even just missing out on the round of 16 despite the 4-2 win in the last group game against Costa Rica would have been rewarded with 13 million euros.
The DFB could easily have paid for the player premiums from the FIFA funds. For winning the group, they would each have received 50,000 euros. The association would have rewarded participation in the quarter-finals with 100,000 euros, the semi-finals with 150,000 euros. Third place would have brought in 200,000 euros, a lost final 250,000 euros. The highest tournament bonus paid out is now 300,000 euros per player for the 2014 World Cup triumph in Brazil. At that time, they received Neuer, Müller, Mario Götze and Matthias Ginter from the Qatar squad.