In the last decade or so, the financial gap between top leagues across Europe and Bundesliga has slowly and steadily increased. Bayern Munich is one of the most successful German clubs, but they are not a financial powerhouse like other giants in Europe.
The Premier League continues to remain the richest football league in the world. Meanwhile, the La Liga giants continue to dominate revenue charts over the years. The Bundesliga clubs have found it difficult to compete with clubs from Premier League due to the massive difference in various revenue streams.
Bayern Munich has been enjoying consistent success in Germany and Europe. They have managed to win two Champions League in the last decade. However, they cannot compete with English clubs and La Liga giants when it comes to breaking transfer records for superstar players.
The pandemic was expected to create a massive black hole for all leagues across Europe. However, the spending from Premier League clubs has hardly taken a hit. While talking on the TOMorrow podcast (vi GGFN), former Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge raised concerns about the massive financial difference between Bundesliga and other leagues.
"“The big problem with professional football here is that it does not appear to change in spite of circumstances or challenges like what happened during the pandemic.”“Salaries and transfer fees are still rising and any industry that increases its budgets during a crisis will have to pay a bill for that at some point and keeping up with the big money clubs is becoming a challenge for the Bundesliga.”"
The comments from Karl-Heinz Rummenigge question the 50+1 ownership model in Germany. As per this rule, commercial investors in Bundesliga clubs cannot have more than 49% stake, which makes sure that the total ownership doesn’t go to the commercial investors.
Meanwhile, other big clubs in Europe have standalone owners. Manchester United is owned by the Glazers family, while PSG and Manchester City are state-backed clubs. Barcelona and Real Madrid also continue to invest heavily in infrastructure and transfers. These big clubs do spend heavily on transfers and pay big wages to players, which eventually inflates the transfer market.
In terms of TV revenue, Premier League has by far the most expensive domestic and international deals for broadcast rights. The English league is set to earn £4.8 billion in domestic rights for three years between 2022 and 2025. In the same time period, Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga will be earning £2.7 billion from domestic broadcast rights. (via Wiki)
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The German clubs will have to become creative in getting more streams of revenue to compete with other big clubs across Europe. The return of full-capacity stadiums from the coming weekend is definitely a big boost, but there is a lot of work to do for Bundesliga clubs to bridge the financial gap with their counterparts.