Frankfurt Blue
13 Apr 2005, 04:33 AM
An interesting article that I was sent:
Bayern Munich general manager Uli Hoeness warns of a bleak future for German
teams in European competition
Kevin McCarra
Tuesday April 12, 2005
The Guardian
Uli Hoeness has thrown in the towel. So far as he is concerned it is all
over for Bayern Munich. The club's general manager was not conceding the
Champions League quarter-final to Chelsea tonight; his fatalism was much
more severe than that. The gloom descended over the long-term outlook for
German clubs in European competition.
Hoeness's aim was to warn of the financial disadvantages of sides in the
Bundesliga and he calculated that, for example, Juventus will have almost
?300m more to spend over the next five years than Bayern. He was trying to
highlight the gulf in revenue from ticket sales and, above all, television
rights but in the process Hoeness could not avoid illustrating how
entrancingly different Germany is from all the other nations in football.
Even if it does stand in the centre of the continent, it is a place apart.
Bayern are the only Bundesliga side left in Europe and Werder Bremen, the
domestic title-holders, were hurled out of the Champions League by Lyon on a
10-2 aggregate, yet the sport is not in disgrace. Germany now has the
highest league attendances of any country and Bayern's new Allianz Stadium,
which opens next month with a 66,000 capacity, is sold out until 2010.
Audiences are lured by a vividly competitive Bundesliga and by prices that
start at around ?7. The culture of the sport makes it barren ground for most
commercial initiatives. Pay-TV coverage is, for example, offered by Premiere
but, despite improvement in its overall position, it still posted losses of
?57m in the most recent accounts. Germans are notorious, so far as
businessmen are concerned, for their reluctance to subscribe to cable
channels.
Football spectators feel fulfilled by the ritual that has them going to a
game on a Saturday and then heading home to watch Bundesliga highlights
shown by the state broadcaster ARD at 6.15pm. With football readily
available in a quantity and at an hour so suitable to the public, Premiere
are handicapped. Any effort to alter those arrangements would be resented
and resisted throughout the land.
There are, however, some marked consequences and the pay-per-view rights to
football are, at about ?210m-a-year, worth half of those in, say, France.
While many of us pore over satellite coverage of games from La Liga and
Serie A, the Bundesliga's overseas appeal is of offbeat character. Its
fixtures make for primetime viewing in China, where the German Klaus
Schlappner was once a celebrated figure as coach of the national team.
That is no help to Hoeness since China, for all its size, is a niche market
so far as television money is concerned. The general manager also
appreciates that he is going against the grain of German football in his
yearning for a more commercial environment. There are no counterparts to
Roman Abramovich or Silvio Berlusconi in a land where clubs are generally
owned by their members. Bayern did turn themselves into a limited company
but that was so Adidas could take a 10% stake. The remaining shares are not
traded.
Entrepreneurs got a bad name, too, because of the reckless spending of
Borussia Dortmund. The club floated itself on the stock exchange and,
despite an immense following in the Ruhr, has since had to sell its stadium
and lease it back on poor terms. It also appears that Dortmund, in the same
fashion, are no longer the real owners of players such as Tomas Rosicky, who
is sometimes claimed to be a target for Tottenham.
With careful budgeting essential, the focus through out the country is on
home-grown talent. That is good news for the hosts of the World Cup, since
youngsters such as Bayern's Bastian Schweinsteiger gather experience, but it
is of no avail in marketing a Bundesliga that is short on glamour across the
globe.
While German football thrives domestically, the aspirations of clubs like
Bayern are in poor health. For a while Hoeness thought that prudence would
triumph once foreign rivals were consumed by debt. Abramovich, however, has
upset his calculations, not only by pumping unimagined sums into Chelsea but
also, in the process, by raising transfer prices to such an extent that
improvident Marseille could bail themselves out of a crisis by despatching
Didier Drogba to Stamford Bridge for ?24m.
Bayern continue to be a substantial institution but a handful of clubs in
England, Italy and Spain can expect to be far richer. A defeat by Chelsea
tonight would drive home Hoeness's point but the average, contented German
fan may not care in the slightest.
Bayern Munich general manager Uli Hoeness warns of a bleak future for German
teams in European competition
Kevin McCarra
Tuesday April 12, 2005
The Guardian
Uli Hoeness has thrown in the towel. So far as he is concerned it is all
over for Bayern Munich. The club's general manager was not conceding the
Champions League quarter-final to Chelsea tonight; his fatalism was much
more severe than that. The gloom descended over the long-term outlook for
German clubs in European competition.
Hoeness's aim was to warn of the financial disadvantages of sides in the
Bundesliga and he calculated that, for example, Juventus will have almost
?300m more to spend over the next five years than Bayern. He was trying to
highlight the gulf in revenue from ticket sales and, above all, television
rights but in the process Hoeness could not avoid illustrating how
entrancingly different Germany is from all the other nations in football.
Even if it does stand in the centre of the continent, it is a place apart.
Bayern are the only Bundesliga side left in Europe and Werder Bremen, the
domestic title-holders, were hurled out of the Champions League by Lyon on a
10-2 aggregate, yet the sport is not in disgrace. Germany now has the
highest league attendances of any country and Bayern's new Allianz Stadium,
which opens next month with a 66,000 capacity, is sold out until 2010.
Audiences are lured by a vividly competitive Bundesliga and by prices that
start at around ?7. The culture of the sport makes it barren ground for most
commercial initiatives. Pay-TV coverage is, for example, offered by Premiere
but, despite improvement in its overall position, it still posted losses of
?57m in the most recent accounts. Germans are notorious, so far as
businessmen are concerned, for their reluctance to subscribe to cable
channels.
Football spectators feel fulfilled by the ritual that has them going to a
game on a Saturday and then heading home to watch Bundesliga highlights
shown by the state broadcaster ARD at 6.15pm. With football readily
available in a quantity and at an hour so suitable to the public, Premiere
are handicapped. Any effort to alter those arrangements would be resented
and resisted throughout the land.
There are, however, some marked consequences and the pay-per-view rights to
football are, at about ?210m-a-year, worth half of those in, say, France.
While many of us pore over satellite coverage of games from La Liga and
Serie A, the Bundesliga's overseas appeal is of offbeat character. Its
fixtures make for primetime viewing in China, where the German Klaus
Schlappner was once a celebrated figure as coach of the national team.
That is no help to Hoeness since China, for all its size, is a niche market
so far as television money is concerned. The general manager also
appreciates that he is going against the grain of German football in his
yearning for a more commercial environment. There are no counterparts to
Roman Abramovich or Silvio Berlusconi in a land where clubs are generally
owned by their members. Bayern did turn themselves into a limited company
but that was so Adidas could take a 10% stake. The remaining shares are not
traded.
Entrepreneurs got a bad name, too, because of the reckless spending of
Borussia Dortmund. The club floated itself on the stock exchange and,
despite an immense following in the Ruhr, has since had to sell its stadium
and lease it back on poor terms. It also appears that Dortmund, in the same
fashion, are no longer the real owners of players such as Tomas Rosicky, who
is sometimes claimed to be a target for Tottenham.
With careful budgeting essential, the focus through out the country is on
home-grown talent. That is good news for the hosts of the World Cup, since
youngsters such as Bayern's Bastian Schweinsteiger gather experience, but it
is of no avail in marketing a Bundesliga that is short on glamour across the
globe.
While German football thrives domestically, the aspirations of clubs like
Bayern are in poor health. For a while Hoeness thought that prudence would
triumph once foreign rivals were consumed by debt. Abramovich, however, has
upset his calculations, not only by pumping unimagined sums into Chelsea but
also, in the process, by raising transfer prices to such an extent that
improvident Marseille could bail themselves out of a crisis by despatching
Didier Drogba to Stamford Bridge for ?24m.
Bayern continue to be a substantial institution but a handful of clubs in
England, Italy and Spain can expect to be far richer. A defeat by Chelsea
tonight would drive home Hoeness's point but the average, contented German
fan may not care in the slightest.