He might have discovered a secret: no need to spend billions on a squad, just buy 20 Grosskreutzs and let them rotate. No chance for Bayern or City to overcome that grit, mentality and determination.
German Football 20/21
- Thread starter do.ob
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Mentalität ist ja der kleine Bruder des Stellungsfehlers.
Jeez, you really are a protectionist when it comes to traditional clubs, aren't you? Canceling 50+1 is the obvious solution. Your way would mean that maybe in 20 years a club could be in the same stratosphere as Bayern if it's managed flawlessly. Might as well just cancel the competition, then.
Is this a quote? Or did you just made that up?
For those who don't speak German it means: "Mentality is the little brother of the positioning error"
Obviously no one could expect 9 consecutive titles in 2013, but nothing went wrong. If anything Bayern simply started turning their financial dominance into consistently good teams, something they failed to do before. If you think about the whole previous decade Bayern were much worse, while having a lot more money than the other teams too. Klopp's Dortmund was the anomaly in how good they were, but that wasn't sustainable because they still had such a tiny budget.
You're kind of answering your own point there, because Bayern transitioned almost seamlessly. There really wasn't that much of a missed opportunity, because Ribery/Robben just continued playing so long, Schweinsteiger was replaced during Guardiola's years and Lahm by Kimmich.
Maybe Bayern just got "lucky" in having that player core, and they'll drop a level once this team cycle is over, but I wouldn't bet on it. Having money means you can correct mistakes more easily. I mean in very simplistic terms a decade of a dominant team is maybe two team transitions under two or three coaches? The fantastic core of players under Heynckes, a gradual transition under Guardiola, and finally Flick. Inbetween it's a lot of overlap, and players still benefit from "muscle memory" under weaker coaches.
I don't think having a more exciting title race is worth selling out the league to a City or PSG type of construct.
Cancelling 50+1 would only widen the gap to Bayern. Who do you think would gobble up the biggest contract? It ain't Schalke, I can tell you that much.
And then throwing a kebab into the goalkeeper's face when shooting.
It's not that bad, but other clubs need to fulfill their potential. When you look at Dortmunds last league title, they had 81 points in 2011/12, so that is a level this club should be able to get if they just maintained/returned to the level they already had. 81 points would have been enough to beat Bayern in 2014/15, 2018/19 and this season as well. There were three more season where Bayern had 82-84 points in the end, so it would have been close.
This is not Bayerns fault, this is on Dortmund's management. Klopps full-strength team would have challenged for 6 of the last 9 years and likely would have won a few, but Dortmund just fell of a cliff and failed to rebuild their level since.
Exactly.
If 50+1 was abolished, which club's supporters would actually allow their club to be majority owned? Even ignoring the fact that the Bundesliga isn't that attractive to Qatar/Abramovich level owners, would clubs that could be attractive investments to some extent like underperforming, sleeping giants HSV or Schalke let themselves be bought? I can't really see that happen.
That's a quote by Mats Hummels
Is this a quote? Or did you just made that up?
For those who don't speak German it means: "Mentality is the little brother of the positioning error"
He also said that people use those phrases when they didn't really understand what happened.There'll be no league anymore if it continues like that. Give it another 10 years of Bayern dominance and their fans as well as the opponent fans will want the ESL to happen.
Also, that's not the way it has to be. There's something inbetween a state owned club and the HSVs and Schalkes of our time.
25% of your club are already owned by Adidas, Allianz and Audi. Investors will go where there's the most underutilized potential becuase this promises the highest return. And that's not Bayern Munich.
You seem to have really strong opinions about stuff you know fairly little about.
It took the arguably best or second best coach in the world to achieve those 81 points. Dortmund has done a great job, they've increased their commercial revenues significantly and nowadays have a higher wage budget and a better squad than in those days. Thing is, even after 10+ years of good management, Dortmund has barely half the annual revenue Bayern has (365m to 634m). Bayern pays it's players 8.12m annually per year, Dortmund is at 4.97, Leverkusen at 3.19.
This is not about fulfilling your potential. If all other clubs fulfill their potential 100% and Bayern does so only at 60%, they still win the league. Thing is, other clubs need to be in reach of the top dog to make it somewhat exciting. It's not impossible to get there but as Dortmund has proven even a decade of clever management and growth isn't enough to be even close to it. If we want a competitive league and don't want to wait for it for another 10 years, the obvious way is to provide ways to accelerate growth.
Football fans are opportunistic. We've already seen investors being involved with those clubs. 1860 and HSV already had investors lined up. Schalke was quasi owned by Tönnies in a way. I can't find the article so I'm not that familiar with the details anymore, but a few years ago I read about the constructs and deals Tönnies used to raise funds for Schalke without having to spend any of his own money. Actually he and his businesses profited from those deals he liked to depict als selfless acts and his willingness to fulfill the dream of his dead brother to lead Schalke to a championship. Has some similarities to the Glazers if you like, only in a different manner.
And it's not only about the financial backing, it's also about the professionalism those investors would bring with them. At most German clubs people are in charge who would never get a comparable job in another economy. Especially on the commercial side of things.
So of course you would have to prevent stuff like Kroenke, the Glazers, etc. I'm not sure how these regulations could look like but if you can prohibit investors from owning the majority of the club I'm sure you can put rules in place that prevent them from abusing this ownership too much.
By the way, I also think that the sheikhs and co. have coined the perception of investments. In other industries it is a natural thing to facilitate the growth of a company so that it can challenge the market leaders. Investments e. g. can also mean that you receive financial funds to see through projects to increase your commercial revenues, e. g. investments in infrastructure, expansion in other countries, etc. I don't want a sheikh to take over Hamburg and have them buy players in 100m € deals but shorten the period of time it'll take for clubs like that to close the gap to Bayern.
In the same post you mention previous football investment stalwarts of Bundesliga fame (Tönnies, Kühne and Ismaik. Might as well add Windhorst and the guy at Uerdingen to that list), none of which have made their clubs any more professional, but rather accomplished the opposite and then you promote that getting rid of 50+1 would promote professionalism?!
Bayern:
https://fcbayern.com/de/club/fcb-ag/jan-christian-dreesen
https://fcbayern.com/de/club/fcb-ag/andreas-jung
Dortmund:
https://aktie.bvb.de/BVB-auf-einen-Blick/Geschaeftsfuehrung2
Gladbach:
https://www.borussia.de/de/verein/struktur/gremien
Frankfurt:
https://klub.eintracht.de/fussball-ag/
Schalke:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Jobst
Hamburg:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wettstein
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Goedhart
Stuttgart:
https://www.vfb.de/de/1893/club/vfb-ag/organe-der-vfb-ag/portrait/vorstand-tobias-keller/
Cologne:
https://fc.de/fc-info/club/ueber-den-fc/vorstand/
Werder:
https://www.werder.de/de/der-svw/struktur/gmbh-co-kg-aa/geschaeftsfuehrung/klaus-filbry/
That's a quick overview. Who are these clubs you are referring to?
I agree that investment can increase professionalism and that's definitely needed in most clubs, but it's not a given that would happen, nor is investment a requirement to restructure clubs into more professional businesses.
For the most part football clubs just aren't a very profitable investment, the risks are far too high compared to possible payout, especially considering how much you'd need to put into a club to reasonably expect to make them challenge a far bigger club. There are far wiser investment opportunities for any person or company with the necessary funds to make that happen, unless marketing is the goal. I agree that sheikhs and co aren't the measuring stick, but I think we've had this discussion before. Are there any examples of clubs who've closed the gap to bigger clubs through "professional" investment rather than an enthusiast investor or sugar daddy?
Raising funds through investment is normal in other industries, but football isn't comparable because so much depends on what happens on the pitch. What happens if the lump sum generated through share sale is spent, but football didn't improve? At that point you're just hoping the owners decide to invest more, but the financial return on a football club isn't exactly a huge incentive to do that. In other industries it's also not unusual to see undervalued companies being acquired to strip them of their assets and sell those. The only certainty I can see with investors is ticket prices increasing massively, because that's an easy way to increase revenue.
The whole professionalism argument is a giant red herring. Clubs these days actively try to recruit DAX managers for their supervisory boards, the CFOs/marketing directors are people with MBAs who, at most clubs, have joined the club AFTER they made a career for themselves elsewhere. That area was a problem 10-15 years ago and to a degree clubs are still suffering from it, but it has been corrected ages ago.
Even if you look at Schalke: Tönnies is a billionaire himself and CEO of a 7.5 billion revenue meat packing corporation. Pretty much the first person you would expect to try and buy a majority of the club if 50+1 should fall. Jobst previously worked at Real Madrid, FIFA and Siemens. Their supervisory board includes the CEO of Nordstream, the former CEO of Düsseldorf Airport, some Deutsche Bank manager and a grand total of one former footballer in Stevens.
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So you enlist investments made under 50 + 1 as arguments against my case? Makes sense.
Of course it's not guaranteed to work. It's a vision and visions can fail, obviously. But we need change and try out new things because otherwise, we're stuck with this situation for decades to come. We're currently talking about an insurmountable head start for Bayern every season and it's highly unlikely that a club can reach the level required organically within the next 10 years. People protecting 50 + 1 are ignoring this all the time.
And I disagree that so much depends on what happens on the pitch. The pitch is where the battles happen but the war is won on other grounds. Commercial revenues, expansion, infrastructure, processes, expertise, etc. Success on the pitch is a direct consequence to those things. Because you whatever you accomplish there will always have a use-by date. Always.
Additionally, I believe there are examples of this being successful. Leipzig respectively the whole RB construct was set up brilliantly in all those aspects. They developed a basis for sustainable success with their player and especially coaching (!) academy. A never ending funnel of talent. That's innovative. RB produced the likes of Roger Schmidt, Marco Rose and Jesse Marsch within a very short span of time and Rene Maric might also become an elite coach in the future - RB recruited this guy based on his blog articles by the way. Wait a few years until Marco Rose and the likes move to their next clubs and I guarantee you whoever coaches Salzburg will be on everybody's list.
It's not a coincidence that Leipzig is so far ahead of the HSV, Schalke and co. in those disciplines. They are because the club was designed by people who knew what they were doing. People who were fed up by the "we always did it this way" attitude of many Bundesliga clubs. A venture with a clear purpose in mind.
This is 100% on point, i don't get what people would blame Bayern for financial imbalance created by RM, Barcelona, and PL clubs(thanks to Sky Sports, Abramovich, and Abu Dhabi).
I would do the opposite, and praise Bayern Munich...in UCL they are only outperformed by Real Madrid.
More semifinal appearances than Barcelona,AC Milan,Man Utd, Liverpool,Juventus,etc..all that, without spending huge money on transfers.
Props to Bayern for being historically the second best in Europe.
I don't actually get this argument. It's not like you are seeing naturally grown, Bayern-like financial imbalances across all the leagues. You don't have it in Italy, in France it's just because of PSG's outside investment, in Spain it's largely because of how TV money is (not) distributed, and the EPL was lifted as a whole across the board because of the huge TV income. I don't know too much about other leagues, except that I know Belgium and the Netherlands don't have a Bayern Munich either. (Ajax is rich, but not that rich, and it comes from selling players for huge amounts in their case.)
You could now point out that there's a financial imbalance inside the EPL, because the top clubs have much more to spend than the Southamptons of the league; but that dynamic exists everywhere. After all, in European football, money and success create further money and success. That's not unique to the EPL. So what's unique to the Bundesliga is not that the top clubs have far more money than the rest, but that 'top clubs' in fact refers to just one club, i.e., Bayern. Below that starts the subtop, even if Dortmund makes the CL virtually every season. I don't see how that particular fact has anything to do with England or Spain.
Wait, nobody blames Bayern. They've earned their position through great and innovative work over several decades and deserve to be at the top. But they're so far ahead of everybody else right now that the Bundesliga is becoming more boring with every year and that's an issue.
Yeah, because supervisory boards are typically where the innovation happens. Nothing more revolutionary than a gathering of old rich men.
And yes, the financial departments of many clubs are very professional. They have to be if you're working for S04, mind.
That's not what I mean. You're giving the people who are actively boycotting innovation and change in their clubs as counter arguments to my point.
Don't you? Not everywhere but I'd say Manchester United is the Premier League's Bayern. Their revenue eclipsed every other club, even Liverpool and Arsenal who were "natural" competitors. Those two fell behind for various reasons, which isn't that different from Bayern's potential competitors falling behind over the decades.
I think that imbalance has mostly been mitigated through Chelsea and City's huge investment. Nowadays the revenue gap has closed, but I think that trend would have continued not unlike the Bundesliga without very generous money influx, and the tv deals exploding.
What's your solution?
Selling half Bundesliga teams to foreign billionaires like the EPL? Cause that's the billionaires you will attract if 50+1 disappears : russian oligarchs,sheiks,chinese billionaires,american magnates,etc.
On top of that, Bayern will still attract more investment than the rest of german teams, that won't change much.
I'm not sure selling half your league to foreign rich people is the solution to the "one team league" problem.
Yes. Because these examples are precisely the people who (would) have tried to take over their respective clubs beyond 50+1. You can add Martin Kind to that list as well.
Who would buy football clubs if not old rich men? Supervisory boards aren't in a position to boycott or drive innovation, their job is to ensure professionalism and responsibility. You can see that most clubs have corporate big wigs for supervisors, MBAs to run the business side and sports people to manage the sporting sinde. So I really don't see how this applies:
"At most German clubs people are in charge who would never get a comparable job in another economy. Especially on the commercial side of things. "
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True about Man Utd, although Liverpool have managed to keep up pretty OK. But anyway, my point here is that the position Bayern occupies in the BL is really unique. Whatever the reason behind it, no other league has this huge gap between one club at the top and the rest underneath it. And my bigger point, and what I was responding to, is that I don't see how the situation in other countries has led to Bayern taking up that particular position.
Sure I agree with that, success on the pitch is a direct consequence of those behind the scene actions, but it often doesn't follow. And without on the pitch success there is only so much success you can achieve off the pitch. In other industries the people in charge have a lot more control over revenue streams, while in football a huge portion depends on if you make 4th rather than 5th for instance. Success breeds success, but it's a much more fickle industry than most others unless you already have a financial advantage.
What Leipzig have achieved is impressive, but it's also not been that long yet so let's wait and see if they can keep it as constant as they have so far, or if they can even take it a step further. It's easy to use them as an example for other clubs when their revenue model is quite different, and they haven't gone through that many team cycles yet.
Fair enough, I misunderstood the argument. It's an interesting question. I guess at a stretch you could argue that because the Bundesliga isn't the driving force behind money in football exploding, money elsewhere escalates the inequality between the top team, Bayern, and the rest. That's happening in other leagues too but in the Bundesliga only that one team was in the position to take advantage of the football boom when it happened, and now the train's left the station to some extent.
I know there's a lot of pessimism in this thread, but I think to some extent Liverpool shows how quickly things can change. They hadn't won the league in 30 years, and while their revenue wasn't that far behind due to the huge tv deal, a couple of successful seasons has turned them back into a top club. 10 years ago their revenue was less than £200m, not that much higher than some German clubs at the time, and a significant gap to United. That gap still exists if you factor out success dependent variables in revenue, but they're competitive again. The Bundesliga is obviously not going to receive tv deals anywhere close to the PL so that's a limiting factor, but I think Dortmund for instance are now (or soon) in a position where one really successful manager appointment could possibly take them up to the next level within a few seasons.
To an extent, yes, although the drive in money was a common thing; you can't really blame it on Spanish or English clubs specifically. Also, Bayern wasn't the only one to profit: Dortmund was in the CL almost every time, and has gone far quite a few times as well. Plus from what I understand, domestic tv money in Germany is divided in a way that benefits the top teams - again putting Dortmund in a bracket with Bayern. Finally, this financial boom hasn't widened the gap to the same extent everywhere (again, not in e.g., NL or Belgium), and hasn't led to exclusivity in the same way (again, nowhere outside the Bundesliga).
Obviously, the money explosion has benefited Bayern more than others, I'm not contesting that. But to get back to the original argument, making that the key thing and then blaming its origin on English and Spanish clubs makes little sense to me.
PSG have won 7 out of the last 8 titles. Juve have won 9 titles in a row. Real and Barca have won 15 of the last 16 titles in Spain.Leagues are getting polarized all over Europe. Whether you win n in a row or n-1 out of n titles is kind of beside the point, as it is coincidence. When PSG, Bayern, Juventus and Real/Barca (arguably even City) do their homework they win the league and even if they don't their challenger needs to be at their best. Bayern have probably been the most consistent team over the past 10 years and the weaker moments they had didn't align with Dortmund's strong ones. Tuchel's first season was definitely title worthy for example. Had he been matched against e.g. Kovac or Ancelotti instead of peak Guardiola then he arguably would have broken the streak, even if it would have been only for a season.
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Yeah I agree with all of that, I was just playing devil's advocate. It's true Bayern isn't the only one to profit, and Dortmund has grown massively in the past decade. They just started from a much lower starting point due to their prior financial trouble, behind quite a few other clubs that could have grown similarly if they hadn't been so mismanaged themselves.
As far as I know the tv money distribution benefits the top teams, but not as much as in Spain for instance. I had a look just now, but I can't tell if the figures include money from international broadcasting too, but that part is small either way. Surprisingly the distribution really isn't that different compared to the Premier League's domestic distribution, as only half of the PL's domestic income is shared equally. The other half depends on merit and how many matches are televised. So the champions generally earn about double what the last in the table does from the domestic pool, while in the Bundesliga it's about 40% in last. However the PL overseas' rights used to be divided equally so that levels the playing field a fair bit, although I don't think that's the case entirely anymore since last season. Overall Man City earned £151m in 18/19 while Huddersfield earned £96m, while in 19/20 Liverpool earned £174m to Norwich' £95m. Compared to Bayern's 70m Euros.
I don't see why the Bundesliga can't divide it more equally, and give every team 50m. But even now no team is further than 20m apart from that mean, which again is not that different to the spread in the PL. Looking at the difference in absolute terms is maybe not as useful as relative, but Barcelona for instance made 120m more than Mallorca from tv money last season, while that gap is actually smaller in the Bundesliga than the PL.
That being said it's not really the tv money that creates this imbalance, nor even just Bayern constantly going far in the Champions League. It's their massive commercial income that no other team can come close to. The fact that CL and EL are becoming more lucrative every other season doesn't help. It leads to every league becoming more top heavy to an extent.
I guess I got carried away a bit, but obviously you're right, other leagues aren't to blame for the Bundesliga's imbalance. But smaller clubs nowadays aren't just outmuscled by Bayern but basically every other club in the PL, so it certainly adds to the imbalance.
That's the point, there is some much money in EPL that english mid table teams can outbid everyone out there except Real,Barcelona,PSG,Bayern, and Juventus.
E.g Leciester did outbid O.Marseille for Kanté and Mahrez.
I don't think the Bundesliga TV money is the cause of the financial imbalance cos the gap in prize money between 1st and 10th is sometimes less than 20m. Which I think is fair enough
Also regarding the 50+1, Recently from argument on this thread, I am starting to lean away from the thought that it can be that silver bullet
Bayern is the 3rd most valuable club, any investment that will rival Bayern has to be in the order of Mansoor, Nasser or Roman not the type of Kreonke or Hicks & Gillette.
Basically only 3 investors/ oligarchs in football who don't care about making a profit or financial gains and are using football as a tool to promote a countries image can challenge Bayern in the short term
Also regarding the 50+1, Recently from argument on this thread, I am starting to lean away from the thought that it can be that silver bullet
Bayern is the 3rd most valuable club, any investment that will rival Bayern has to be in the order of Mansoor, Nasser or Roman not the type of Kreonke or Hicks & Gillette.
Basically only 3 investors/ oligarchs in football who don't care about making a profit or financial gains and are using football as a tool to promote a countries image can challenge Bayern in the short term
Also, it was pointed out during the discussion a few weeks ago that spreading TV money more equally across the league would disadvantage Bayern's potential competitors more than Bayern, as the drop in income for clubs like Dortmund or Leipzig would be bigger relative to their total income than for Bayern.
That's true, didn't think of it this way as I've been a supporter of more equitable distribution of TV income.
That being said, I think in the long turn it still would be a better idea especially if the BL continues to see an increase in TV revenue. Bayern's share in that money will decrease.
100% this. Those leagues haven't had any restrictions in terms of ownership and have seen similar dominance from a couple of teams. It's not as if Lille have had some massive investment this season that has seen them almost topple PSG.
Dortmund were a point away from winning the title in Kovac's season, that was also a collapse from them as they were leading for a large part of the end of the season.
Bayern would've won the title in all but two of the last 10 seasons in the EPL, the two I would exclude are the Kovac and Anchelotti seasons when City were at their peak and better than Bayern. Other than that, Bayern have either been far better than the EPL teams or at least equal to the team at the top. The problem with PSG and Juve isn't that they faced a team with massive investment and money thrown at them by owners, but that they played poorly and were punished for it. Bayern have been managed very well in terms of the squad being rebuild after the era or Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Robbery, which has continued their success.
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I don't think it will be fair to give the 1st and 18th team the same prize money
https://sportske.jutarnji.hr/sn/nog...mci-odustaju-od-hrvata-a-evo-i-zasto-15072121
The Croatian international Borna Sosa (23, LWB, VfB Stuttgart) is not allowed to play for Germany according to FIFA statute. The German FA (DFB) will publish an official statement after a session on Wednesday, which will confirm that the DFB won't take any risks with FIFA.
Franjo Vrankovic, a famous Croatian football manager, who's also a very close friend to Jörg Englisch (Head of the legal department of the German FA - DFB) confirmed, that Englisch told him that the DFB is giving up on Borna Sosa, because he's not allowed to play for any other national team except for Croatia according to the newest FIFA statute from September 2020.
On Wednesday, DFB will hold a seassion organized by the technical director Oliver Bierhoff, in which they'll talk about Borna Sosa. After the session, they will publish an official statement explaining that Sosa doesn't meet the conditions set by FIFA to play for Germany and finally put an end to the story.
Franjo Vrankovic says that this has been an excellent PR stunt by Sosa, since he apparently raised his value on the football market by doing this, especially considering the fact that he has an open bid from Leeds United and some other Premier League clubs (they were not named by Vrankovic). It's expected that Stuttgart demands at least €20m for Sosa.
The Croatian international Borna Sosa (23, LWB, VfB Stuttgart) is not allowed to play for Germany according to FIFA statute. The German FA (DFB) will publish an official statement after a session on Wednesday, which will confirm that the DFB won't take any risks with FIFA.
Franjo Vrankovic, a famous Croatian football manager, who's also a very close friend to Jörg Englisch (Head of the legal department of the German FA - DFB) confirmed, that Englisch told him that the DFB is giving up on Borna Sosa, because he's not allowed to play for any other national team except for Croatia according to the newest FIFA statute from September 2020.
On Wednesday, DFB will hold a seassion organized by the technical director Oliver Bierhoff, in which they'll talk about Borna Sosa. After the session, they will publish an official statement explaining that Sosa doesn't meet the conditions set by FIFA to play for Germany and finally put an end to the story.
Franjo Vrankovic says that this has been an excellent PR stunt by Sosa, since he apparently raised his value on the football market by doing this, especially considering the fact that he has an open bid from Leeds United and some other Premier League clubs (they were not named by Vrankovic). It's expected that Stuttgart demands at least €20m for Sosa.
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Do the Croatians still want him now?
I don't know how many times I have to repeat that there is something inbetween Russian/Chinese/American oligarchs/sheiks/billionaires and incompetent ex players at the helmet. Neither RB nor Hopp nor Bayer nor VW - the investors currently active in the league - fit your description.
And why would Bayern attract more investment? They're already owned to 25% by some of the biggest corporations in Germany. And they have less potential to grow than other clubs. This makes no sense.
But what's your solution? The league will spiral more and more into irrelevancy if nothing happens.
Exactly, they're supervising, not managing. And so far, the investors except from 50+1 in the Bundesliga are Bayer, VW, Hopp and RB. Three companies, one rich old men whose goal it was to get the club to stand on it's own feed but wanted to have his say until then. And he didn't even want to take over Hoffenheim but a more prestigious club in the beginning.
To be honest, I think Klopp is one of a kind. He's a unique combination of quality and down to earth attitude. Usually managers of this quality move on and follow the money. Not necessarily because they want to earn more but because it provides them with even more possibilities, too. Which is why I don't think you can name Dortmund 11/12 or Liverpool now as a role model or a light at the end of the tunnel because it's not reproducable. Sure, if Klopp rejoins Dortmund one day it might be the case but Liverpool will fall behind again when this happens and their players will leave because the hope for big titles is gone and the payment elsewhere is higher.
Even under Tuchel - and he's currently showing in which category of managers he belongs - Dortmund couldn't overcome Bayern because they had Guardiola. And that's the point, Bayern can always get one better because of their financial strength and attraction. Now they have Nagelsmann in charge who's potentially on a level with Tuchel, Klopp and the likes.
So of course I don't like the thought of binning 50+1 per se since I also see where it has taken the EPL. But in general, I think you can't stop progress and the league will be left behind eventually if nothing happens. I'm okay with the Bundesliga playing second fiddle again but I really don't want the early to late mid 00s back in which nothing that happened in German football was of any relevance on an international level. When even the best players of the league barely made the national teams of great football nations or when even the best team in the league arguably was quite clearly worse than the second or third best teams in England, Spain and Italy.
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I'm quite excited to see what he can do at a richer club than Paderborn. It was astonishing how entertaining and brave their football was for such a big underdog last season.
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Trying to weaken the competition by stealing the coach of a next door neighbor in the table..
Then there is a brewing story about Union Berlin's academy:
First we have this buzzfeed story, reporting how several parents have complained to the Berlin football association about how their kids were treated and dismissed, the article also reports that the ratio of kids with an Arab or Turkish background went down from 40% to 10% within two years when Union's current academy head took over, they claim that their research brought up many families/kids who felt like they were treated as second class citizens, because of their ethnicity. They also claim that agents warn clients of such behavior.
https://www.buzzfeed.de/recherchen/...rwuerfe-union-berlin-bundesliga-90530545.html
Then there is a second component:
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Here we have the Twitter account of the Buzzfeed reporter who appears to be in charge of the story. He claims that on last week's monday he sent a catalogue of questions to the club and the academy coach in question, giving them the opportunity to comment until thursday. According to him Union's press officer answered him the following day that they won't fill out the catalogue, but they want to invite him for a chat. Apparently they offered today (several days after the initial deadline) as the earliest opportunity.
Then yesteday (on the eve of the appointment), Union's press officer sent him an email explaining that they have learned that the journalists have acted in bad faith by contacting third parties (apparently DFB and the Berlin FA - which according to the journalist is standard practice) and immediately released a statement condemning the journalists and actually Buzzfeed's own questions with answers on their homepage.
It feels like there is a bad story about Union every other month and even worse: together with Bayern's racism scandal this now marks the second top division academy to face such accusations within a few months, that's already a ninth of Bundesliga and who knows how many more cases are waiting out there to be discovered. I think it's time for DFB to start an honest investigation into the youth system, root out these people themselves right now instead of waiting for journalists to drag them out one at a time.
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And you seem to keep making personal attacks for a lack of actual arguments. You're right, 25% are owned by private entities. And then you proceed to talk about underutilized potential. Well, you have a sneak preview in RBL. Now, I'll virtually give you 10 billion bucks. Do with them as you please. Who would you give money, who would give you more bang for your buck. The team that apparently has a subscription on at least one title per year, most likely two and the realistic potential for a third every few years?
Or the team that gets billions shoved up its rear end only to end up second. Every. Single. Year. With little prospect of even getting one title. I'm throwing you a bone here, this is the best case scenario for your argument. Who would you give money to? Or, let's take the realistic approach that you probably meant: You have the choice of either Bayern or, let's say Kaiserslautern, a team with a strong history, past glory, one of the most passionate fanbases in Germany... are you willing to bet billions on the fact that Lautern could come up out of nowhere and contest Bayern for every title? Or will they end up where RBL is, after a billions of investment, only ending up second place?
But keep on saying I don't know anything, that'll make your argument stronger, surely... 50+1 going away won't solve the problem. It'll widen the gap, that's the end of it. We can see what's happening without 50+1 in the recent rollercoaster that was the ESL introduction. Holy cow, you want THAT? You want Bayern boosted by big money only for them to have no way to avoid joining such an endeavour? Make no mistake, if it wasn't for the English fans, we'd be looking at the ruins of European football right now. And right now English fans are using 50+1 as an idea to combat the power grasp non-football entities have on English clubs, and you turn around and say we should get rid of it?
I'm sorry, I can't take you seriously if you keep saying I don't know anything about any of this. Do I sit in the board meetings at Bayern? No, but I find their actions and the philosophy very transparent and consistent. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Bayern could make a metric ton of extra money if they wanted to. But they don't. And this discussion is not leading anywhere.
It's more interesting to see how we can lift up the rest of the BL. Not artificially, they'll have to claw their way back into contention, but something needs to happen. Bayern can't be happy with the situation, either. Sure, they'll take any title they can get, but a title without competition isn't worth much. This title is worth a tenth of winning the title 2013 against Dortmund that was kicking Bayern's butt like every single season. The sad truth is that it was probably Dortmund that forced Bayern to step it up and turn into the beast machine they are now. I am personally very, VERY sad that Dortmund suffered this dramatic falloff and I genuinely hope that at least they can come back up soon. It's lonely up there without them.
You can ask the same question, why Abu Dhabi bought City and Roman bought Chelsea instead of by far the best English club ?
The market potential with ManUtd was far more higher than Chelsea and City, City was a nothing team. It was a championship, PL floating team. Look at them now.
It all depends on the cost of buying club. How much would Bayern worth if a rich guy wants to buy it, compared to how much would other clubs cost. Without checking, Bayern is at least 5X costlier to acquire than any other Bundesliga club? (maybe except Dortmund).
Great documentary on Bayern. Given that this thread is almost exclusively filled by Bayern fans I thought some might enjoy this one!
Cos the best club was owned by Americans already? I'm guessing here, I don't know the timeline in the EPL.
