Yes, in many clubs' cases, it is definitely incompetency as well. But what would you think if 50+1 was abolished and huge investors would start pumping money into clubs. Do you think they would allow that kind of shit to happen at Schalke, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Berlin and the likes? 50+1 prevents professionalism, it really does. It's why folklore gets outshined by economy in almost every part of this world. The real question is, is this still a positive thing to have in the Bundesliga in this century? I highly doubt it. I for one think the commercialization has already progressed to such a high amount that it's basically living in the past to have 50+1. It's a fairytale for fans who are dumb enough to believe it. There's almost no benefit from it, only hugh disadvantages.
German football is turd
- Thread starter TwoSheds
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Yes, in many clubs' cases, it is definitely incompetency as well. But what would you think if 50+1 was abolished and huge investors would start pumping money into clubs. Do you think they would allow that kind of shit to happen at Schalke, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Berlin and the likes? 50+1 prevents professionalism, it really does. It's why folklore gets outshined by economy in almost every part of this world. The real question is, is this still a positive thing to have in the Bundesliga in this century? I highly doubt it. I for one think the commercialization has already progressed to such a high amount that it's basically living in the past to have 50+1. It's a fairytale for fans who are dumb enough to believe it. There's almost no benefit from it, only hugh disadvantages.
agreed!
If people think that ultimately, global financial markets will give a shit about football, or generally improve anything about the areas of life they start to control, they are sorrily mistaken. It is already possible to be a sugardaddy investor in Bundesliga, you just have to deal with the limitations of political power that come with 50+1.
I wouldn't want to cling to 50+1 just for the sake of clinging to the letter it, but it's clear that if it were to be reformed, there still would need to be serious, tight regulations for keeping the power and wants of financial investment in check.
And putting meaningful, working regulations aganst financial fraud and greed in place is what current political leadership does best, right?
Personally, I think the price to pay for allowing random 'owners' is far too high, though obviously as a Bayern fan I'm in aprivileged position to claim that.
As turd as it is, German football really isn't that bad. It's not so broken as to need such a fateful fix.
No, it's money. There are many clubs that are managed very well in the Bundesliga. If they were able to keep the talent they produce, they could already compete, but they aren't capable of that.
Incompetence is only to blame when a club underachieves. That's not the case for Dortmund, Leverkusen, Leipzig, Gladbach, Frankfurt or Freiburg, for instance. But it's the case for the HSV, Schalke, Stuttgart (formerly), Hertha, Wolfsburg (formerly), etc.
As it is, the Bundesliga will never be interesting again. The issue is Bayern is not only bigger than the rest, they're also expanding their lead. And that's true for other international top clubs as well. Dortmund for instance is doing incredibly well for the last 15 (!) years or so, they're still way off the top dogs in the industry and it will remain that way most likely. The Bundesliga is currently heading for even bigger irrelevancy than it already has.
It's really not surprising to hear such things from a Bayern fan, honestly. Abolishing 50+1 would basically mean Bayern's hegemony was in danger, hence people sometimes tend to not like that thought. I personally think that it would actually mean that Bayern would become even bigger and better than they are now, just have a look at the Dortmund boost when Klopp got back to back titles - it really helped elevate Bayern in the longer term.
Not sure what you mean by saying that you could already be a sugardaddy investor in the Bundesliga, "just" the limitations of 50+1 - do you actually think that billionaires or other investors do it just to burn money? No, they want exactly the control, they want to decide the important things in a club and not be dependant on others. That's very obvious to me and I can't wrap my head around why one would say that it's "just" this kind of limitation; it's the most important aspect for investors. My actual point: the current system is not any better than the possibilities in England for example. It's all commercial anyways, why not take the good parts of it and actually elevate the league as a whole to a more professional level.
Yea well, obviously regulations are neccessary, but not in this kind of way, at least, if you want the league to become competetive in itself and internationally. It's a dinosaur's rule. Something great from the past, nothing more.
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German football is not as turd as many on this board suggest, but it is actually pretty shitty on an international level. Which basically means it's fun to watch domestically because we like our clubs, don't we? But there's no sexappeal to any person outside of Germany to watch it, since the quality is pretty low bar Bayern and sometimes Dortmund. Europa League and Champions League results speak for themselves, I'd say.
It's not that broken? It's boring as hell and totally fecked up. The clubs that are doing well are constantly thrown back since bigger players (with investors) are poaching on their most promising players and one club will win the whole thing with a probability of >90%.
Dortmund for instance is doing great from a managerial perspective for the past 15 years. Inter and MIlan have been a real mess in the last 7 or 8 years or so but now that they have got their shit together, they'll probably overtake Dortmund in no time again. So what's so great about this league? That every club outside Bayern is constantly losing the brightest talent they have produced?
I mean, as a fan of a second tier club in the Bundesliga, the greatest joy associated with your club is if former players win stuff with teams other than Bayern. How sad is that?
I did in the very post you quote point out that I'm in a privileged position to be relaxed about the current situation, though, you may believe me or not, I can assure you the reason why I'm sceptical about abandoning the 50+1 rule is not that I want to keep the competition at bay, it's literally everything but.
As for a second point, just a general thing to think about:
if an 'owner' invests in a club to make money, they are not a sugar daddy owner. The owners of the clubs propering most, in terms of football success, from outside ownership, in Premier League - Chelsea and Manchester City - are precisely those clubs whose investing owners do not follow a straightforward logic of investment and return, but actually give the club money for reasons other that direct financial profiteering.
In Abramovich's case, among other indirect financial reasons, there's surely a good dose of actual connection, of being a fan, involved. In terms of Man City, or PSG, it's an amalgamation of a genuinely football-loving feudalist class simultaneously using a club for a giant state PR campaign.
And these are also btw the clubs where most other fans would claim a violation of FFP rules. It's a bit ironic to point to the energizing of competition through outside investment as if free market capitalist logic was performing these benefits. It is not.
And what I was saying is that, everyone who wants to give a Bundesliga club his money can already do so, to put it naively simple.
As for the clubs whose owners profit from the club, it's actually very arguable who's the one benefitting from whom, in the big picture. Ask Man United fans.
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It's not turd at all. It's the third or fourth best league in the world.
To put it bluntly and polemically.
The Premier League isn't a bigger market because outside investors buy into the clubs, but outside investors buy into the clubs because the PL is a huge market and they want a piece of the pie.
If outside financial investors start to more unregulatedly invest in Bundesliga, it won't become a bigger market, the quality of football won't become better, there won't be less incompetent people in the periphery and in the boardrooms.
The only relevant thing that will happen is that ticket prices will go up.
The Premier League isn't a bigger market because outside investors buy into the clubs, but outside investors buy into the clubs because the PL is a huge market and they want a piece of the pie.
If outside financial investors start to more unregulatedly invest in Bundesliga, it won't become a bigger market, the quality of football won't become better, there won't be less incompetent people in the periphery and in the boardrooms.
The only relevant thing that will happen is that ticket prices will go up.
do you really believe that? Especially the bolded part? That's very much selfulfilling and a strong interdependence between these two factors.
Guess we have to agree to disagree, then. My opinion on these things is obviously completely different from yours and while I think I'm right, I feel like there's no point in arguing if your own opinion is as strong (or even stronger?) about this as mine. But of course feel free to answer me any time, if you want to!
That's nice of you but unfortunately it really is turd. Not as turd as many in here suggest but still turd. The best thing the league produces is talent and it either gets exported or ends up at Bayern or the second tier players at Dortmund. Given the love for football, population size and economic capabilities of Germany, the league should be much better than it is and not Bayern Munich and a gathering of feeder clubs for EPL, La Liga and Serie A.
There was a very brief period in which the league was really exciting, precisely the Klopp at Dortmund years, but before and after it's very dull. I think if one really reflects the state of the league, it's almost depressing. No club, not even Dortmund, entertains the though of keeping the talent it produces on the long term. It's like an ever lasting cycle of develop, sell and repeat under the hope that one day the club accumulates enough wealth to challenge this way, all the while other clubs in top leagues waste hundreds of millions of cash, shake it off over two or three seasons, and challenge again. The football is exciting, the talents and managers are great but you just know it's only a platform to showcase the potential to play in other leagues.
That's nonsensical. Investor's are attracted by the potential for growth and the Bundesliga has utilized significantly less marketing potential than the Premier League.
The Premier League hasnt had the same winner 8 years in a row, at this point Bundesliga is far more comparable to the SPL In terms of completion, unlike Celtic though it’s a very big chance Bayern make it 10 in a row.
Polemically speaking? Yes, I do.
Couldn't we see it differently? The EPL just did not have a team in the last decade that was that superior. All of the top teams had their ups and downs. If the top teams - especially Manchester City - got their gas on the ground they were as superior as Bayern was.
Also want to point out, again, that exactly all of the three clubs that messed up badly in Europa League, Wolfsburg, Leverkusen, Hoffenheim, are exeptions to the 50+1 rule, which kind of hints at how absurd and diffuse this whole argument on these pages is.
If German football is turd, we would fit in pretty well.
It is very narrowminded and ignorant to just take these 3 clubs into consideration when we are talking about the league as a whole - especially if you know said clubs history, identity and the general background (especially their financial background and how it developed over the recent two decades) and also their geographical location.
To me it seems almost trivial that if bundesliga clubs had more money, they would be able to match competition from other clubs and could therefor hold players. Borussia Dortmund for example has literally become a sellers club which seems to not have the aim to get to the highest level footballwise, but to accumulate more and more money just to maintain the current status in terms of football quality. And that's solely down due to financial factors. Dortmund sells to the topclubs, Dortmund buys from the lower clubs, of course there's always a natural pyramid, but the gap between these clubs is absolutely insane on a financial level.
Premier League net spend last 5 years: - 4.184,97 Mio. €
Bundesliga net spend last 5 years: - 313,54 Mio. €
That's 13 times the net spend! Of course financial power is a huge problem for the Bundesliga, its just plain obvious. Now imagine how much of that net spend from the Bundesliga belongs to Bayern? Thats - 210,95 Mio. €.
A club like Leeds is able to pull off a transfer for 34 Mio. €. Newcastle bought Joelinton from Hoffenheim for 44 Mio. € - only Hernandez was bought by Bayern for more money in the whole history of the Bundesliga. Interesting enough: from the top 20 of the highest buys of the Bundesliga, just 6 are not transfers done by Bayern.
Money is 100% part of the problem (several other factors, too, obviously!), german clubs simply cannot compete. Abolishing 50+1 would obviously at least create a possibility (and I'd like to think a very good one, as I said before) that the Bundesliga stops bleeding out in all directions bar Bayern every year.
German football is okayish and not that turdy, but the financial situation is extreme turd. It's actually totally astonishing that despite these extreme gaps the Bundesliga is at least somewhat able to compete on the international stage and is considered a top 4 league.
I think it would be great to discuss the complexities of the financial situation of Bundesliga and the role of the 50+1 rule in it, and I'm not disputing what you write, but if we're going to do it, let's do it in another thread please. This just isn't the right place.
It's not the first time I feel the 50+1 rule deserves a thread of its own to be debated and I'm greatly looking forward to what I will be able to read in it, but I have to admit that right at this moment I'm too lazy to make one. Bear with me.
I think people here are being way too pessimistic. I watched quite a few matches of the Bundesliga this season, and especially in the first half of the season I thought there were genuinely a lot of teams capable of playing decent football, even if they lacked the consistency to keep it up. Sometimes I think it's a league full of midtable teams, with few exceptions at the top and bottom. Given there's no outside investment, maybe it's partially this lack of hierarchy that hinders teams to progress? For a few years it seemed like a hierarchy of clubs playing in Europe was emerging, but often it's the "wrong" clubs with little chance of larger growth hugging those places? Hoffenheim etc
Allowing investors control of clubs perhaps won't magically solve anything anyway. Look at Valencia for instance, or the spanish league in general. Aren't investors allowed to invest there, yet has that affected the dominance of the top clubs at all?
All things considered, the Bundesliga is frustrating with Bayern being so dominant but at the same time I don't think the league is stagnating entirely. Some clubs are growing steadily even if they don't have anything to show for it (yet).. but Bayern can't stay at their level indefinitely.
Allowing investors control of clubs perhaps won't magically solve anything anyway. Look at Valencia for instance, or the spanish league in general. Aren't investors allowed to invest there, yet has that affected the dominance of the top clubs at all?
All things considered, the Bundesliga is frustrating with Bayern being so dominant but at the same time I don't think the league is stagnating entirely. Some clubs are growing steadily even if they don't have anything to show for it (yet).. but Bayern can't stay at their level indefinitely.
It's still nonsensical to say there is no competitor when the gap is a measly two points and the two top teams still have to play each other.
They did and they will, since there's absolutely no signs of change that could even tickle their financial hegemony. They will also be the absolute top club in this league unless drastic changes take place.
Cheer up, I do think that if Schalke can achieve a little bit of calmness in the background, do some prudent decisions in the summer, and if Grammozis proves to be a capable appointment, there really is a good chance you could actually win the league next season
Cheer up, I do think that if Schalke can achieve a little bit of calmness in the background, do some prudent decisions in the summer, and if Grammozis proves to be a capable appointment, there really is a good chance you could actually win the league next season
not going to happen, even in the second division. Club's a total mess, it's one of the prime examples for incompetency and not enough financial power creating a situation in which such an underachievement can occurtotal shambles, don't want to talk about it in detail
If other clubs dont get money in form of foreign investment, Bayern will win 8/10 titles. They might falter once in a while. but they will still dominate. Unless they intentionally dumb down like Juventus did appointing their own version of Kovac to allow others catch up
I do apologize.
total shambles, don't want to talk about it in detail
Accepted! But I do have to admit, I'm really looking forward to the next season in the second division. Cheaper tickets, more goals (by the correct team), good train connection for me, a fresh start, a new hope and so forth
Yeah I guess that's true! What I was trying to say is Bayern will always be the top club and they'll win it most of the time, but there will be years where they won't get everything right and they'll have shit years too I believe. Sure they've made mistakes in the past decade like Kovac, but even then the fallout was manageable. The level they've consistently maintained in the past decade has been almost unmatched across Europe, regardless of how good or bad their domestic competition is. They have the means to keep it that way, but most other clubs with similar means have had more ups and downs i think.
On another note, what is the limit to financial growth of a top club? I don't want to speculate on the football bubble bursting or anything, but at what point has a club like Bayern or United exhausted most avenues of growth? I just looked up the figures for Bayern's revenue and it hovers somewhere around 700m, with massive growth in the past decade or two. Dortmund's is vaguely around 450m and includes a larger share owed to player sales I'm guessing, but overall they've also grown at a fast pace since Klopp.
They'll likely never close the gap entirely, but with good management and a fair bit of luck is it not foreseeable that they'll keep growing while Bayern's growth rate slows down at some point? Dortmund are still too far away financially to challenge Bayern, bar the odd year. However I also don't believe that they need to be on completely equal footing to become a more serious threat to Bayern's dominance. That being said, I don't see that happening in the near future.
But that is only an argument about the excitement, not the quality of the league
I would argue every Bayern team besides the ones coached by Kovac would give every PL Winner of the decade a run for their money. Between 2014 and 2018 int's not even a challenge.
On the other hand most BL fans hate Bayern. For us it has been a very sad decade.
I believe you're on the right track. The fact that there's much fluctuation at the top (what some people call entertaining and competitive outside of Bayern) was a real issue for a long time. But that has to do with the fact that every success story in the Bundesliga outside of Bayern has an expiration date. The next rebuild is just around the corner and usually you have to see it throughit before you can really reap the rewards of the previous cycle. And while you're in rebuild mode, you're likely to miss out on international competitions and thus lose lots of money. The only club able to overcome this dynamic is Dortmund. They're managed very professionally and sustainably over the last 15+ years. And still they're light years behind Bayern. That's what's so frustrating about the Bundesliga: It's leading nowhere. Everything is pointless. You have great talents coming through and a manager to get the best out of them? Great, enjoy it while it lasts because most likely, the team is too inexperienced to win you anything and this will only increase their desire to leave sooner or later, contributing to the spiral.
And even if a team manages to steal a title from Bayern, you just know they'll come back stronger. It's like watching a film in which you know the evil guy wins. And yes, they are the evil guys. You can't imagine how unbearable their officials behave in public towards other clubs. They've taken double standards to a whole new level.
Obviously this doesn't mean that everything is bad in the Bundesliga. But as I said: It's leading nowhere. Attractive football, innovative coaching and exciting talents are great to have but in the end, this is a sport and a sport without real competition is pointless. And that's the reality: There's no ambition in the league. Neither domestically nor internationally. Not because the clubs are too kind but because it would literally be a denial of reality. Even 15+ years of flawless work is unlikely to lead you anywhere. 15 years.
Obviously those two signings aren't but Bayern basically buying the best players from every other German club whenever they're challenged means that the Bundesliga can never put together two title challenging sides for more than a season or two meaning Bayern can win the CL and everyone else has a glass ceiling. Why would anyone looking to win things go to a non-Bayern German club?
Its like if we bought the best players from Liverpool, City, Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal every time we didn't win the league. How is that not bad for them?
I'm not saying their signings directly cause their opponents to struggle but they get the best players from their oponents whenever their monopoly is threatened meaning every other club has a glass ceiling. Dortmund were run brilliantly, won the league and came close in Europe. Then Goetze, Hummels and Lewandowski all were bought by Bayern. Then Bayern won several titles in a row and Dortmund never did as well in Europe. They just take the strengths from other clubs using extra financial muscle that make it a monopoly.
Any player in Germany looking to win a title either has to leave the country or hope to go to Bayern making every other club less appealing and capable.
Even If City were as superior as Bayern they would still have a Liverpool to deal with who have amassed 90+ plus points in two seasons, the likes simply hasn’t happened in Germany for the best part of a decade, in terms of another team challenging Bayern.
The quality of the Premier League is much better though also.
Thing is, bar these 3 mentioned by you, Bayern hardly buys anything from opponents. Quite on the contrary, Bayern missed out on a lot of players that they actually wanted to sign from the Bundesliga, for example de Bruyne, Dembele, maybe even Havertz and Werner and in the near future Haaland and Sancho. And the list goes on and on, which shows quite clearly that even Bayern can not really compete with the financial muscle of the international competitors.
Regarding Hummels - yes, he was signed by Bayern because he was a Bayern youth kind of reject and wanted to try it again back there. The transfer fee was reasonable for that time and not many years later he went back to Dortmund. I don't think he would have left Dortmund for any other club but Bayern due to his family connections and his desire to stay in Germany. This transfer actually damaged Dortmund.
Lewandowski leaving Dortmund obviously weakened Dortmund as well, but his stay there had an expiry date - he would have gone somewhere else in any case. Madrid, ManCity, whatever, he was gone anyway.
Götze weakened them at first, but since he was most likely already sick (or shortly after) when he joined Bayern, it's not such a huge loss.
Also: these three joined Bayern in 2013, 2014 and 2016. Not just in one year and suddenly the quality of Dortmund went downhill. It went downhill when Klopp's system went downhill.
Exceptional players simply don't stay anywhere in Germany bar Bayern, since they're the only ones who can fulfill the players' desire to win trophies and get paid top dollar. If Lewandowski wouldn't have joined Bayern, they would have joined another club, just like Dembele, de Bruyne and so on - which would have actually weakened the league as a whole. There is not more quality in the league if players leave it for another country. Which leads to my original point: financial power just isn't there. Compared to the rivals from Italy, Spain and England, german clubs are absolute dwarves in this regard. If you take that into account, german football definitely is making the most of their financial power compared to spanish, english or italian football.
In the premier league even relegation fodder can spend a fecktonne of money. That's why the quality is higher.
Though I must say the money to quality ratio for the bottom half in the prem is fecking shocking. Im quite sure even Burnley has a bigger transfer and salary budget than Ajax.
Though I must say the money to quality ratio for the bottom half in the prem is fecking shocking. Im quite sure even Burnley has a bigger transfer and salary budget than Ajax.
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Exactly! And on another note, not just regarding players, but regarding coaches: Just have a look how money german/bundesliga coaches have been going to the PL recently. The list goes on and on and it's quite clear that most of them are held in high regards. They can't go to a club which could fulfill their wishes in terms of players but also in terms of their own salary and title chances. Which stems from the atrophied financial muscle.
Was talking about the overall state of affairs, season after season, not a particular point of time in a particular season. Every season , it certainly feels a given that Bayern will win it. Even if at certain points teams seem to get near, them dropping off is guaranteed. It certainly feels that there is a deep rooted something in the Bundesliga/Bayern factual dynamics that is repeatedly helping Bayern trample opposition. I don't know what it is, but from an outside perspective it creates disinterest in the league.
There isn't even a future hope of sustained competition. Can't you spot the difference between that and the state of the matter in the PL?
When Bayern did not buy Aubameyang, Gundogan, KdB, Werner, Dembele Pulisic, Harvetz, did they stay at their clubs?
Dortmund had a good team under Tuchel who could have challenged Bayern, but lost Aubameyang Mikitaryan, Gundogan Pulisic Sokratis, Dembele to non Bayern clubs. This shows that even if Bayern don't buy the players, they still wont stay