Picture courtesy of flickr
Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has been speaking to the media recently and is apparently concerned about the lack of competition in the Bundesliga.
Seeing as Munich have won their domestic league with six games to go and by a margin of 20 points, it would seem Hoeness has a point. He is afraid the Bundesliga is in danger of becoming a monopoly, worse than the duopoly that has emerged in Spain with Real Madrid and Barcelona.
So if the German league is so easy for Munich, perhaps it’s the time to make a few amendments?
I seem to recall Formula 1 having to make a few changes to their rules when a certain German driver was winning everything. Bernie Ecclestone implemented a new scoring system in which the points were changed for finishing in certain places.
Returning to the original point in hand about the German league being to easy, by Hoeness’s logic, maybe it’s time then to alter the points scale specifically for Munich? It will certainly slake Hoeness’s desire for an equally-balanced playing field if Munich were to only get two points for a win, wouldn’t it?
This’ll never realistically happen however, so we need to look at why the German league has become so one sided in recent years.
I feel the majority of it has to do with the vast wealth accumulated by Munich over many years of success and the astronomical war chests given out the managers each year. This wealth is put down to a massive commercial revenue stream generating close to £150 million ($230 million) per year.
In terms of revenue generated, even Real Madrid earn £20 million ($30.6 million) less than Munich per year, and the mighty Manchester United earn an astonishing £60 million ($91.8 million) less then Munich per year.
In contrast to the above figures, Borussia Dortmund, Munich’s nearest league rival this year, earned only £71 million ($108.6 million) in commercial revenue. Clearly there is a gulf in revenue generated, therefore leading to a gulf in the quality of players that can be acquired.
Take Munich, Dortmund, Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen out of the Bundesliga, and the nearest team left, SC Freiburg, only generate £50 million ($76.5 million) in total yearly revenue, of which only about a quarter will be commercial.
The revenues for Eintracht Frankfurt, FC Nuremberg and FC Augsburg don’t even bear mentioning in the same breath as the above clubs, hence the massive gulf in quality in the Bundesliga. The fact that Munich make more in commercial revenue alone than the entire bottom ten clubs speaks volumes and as long as that’s the case, there will always be a Munich monopoly in the German league.
James Hilton is a soccer writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter , Facebook or add him to your network on Google
