Economical Side of Bayern Munich - Bright Future Or Troubles Ahead?

Today I want to talk about one of the most popular ad successful football clubs in European history: Bayern Munich. Especially in Germany this club is very controversial and has a lot of haters but at the same time, many people are loving this club for its position in the European football and economic work that this club is doing. In this article I want to discuss the financial facts in 2022 for this club, compare it to other big European clubs as well as talk about the controversy that this club comes with.

Financial Facts

Let’s start with the financial facts of 2022. Yet again this club was able to end this year in a profit. Around 10 Million Euros after taxes it was. It does not sound too much, but considered that many clubs can not even make profit these years shows that this club has a solid economic background. They managed to earn a total of 665 million Euros, which is divided into big portions from marketing and sponsoring, tickets as well as merchandising. On the other side, the biggest expenses were the payment of the players which lays at 324 million euros which is actually one of the highest sums in European football.

What is very incredible is that this club is debt free and owns a capital of over 500 million. The liquidity of this club is at around 267 million Euros. This means that whenever transfers are needed, the club can open its wallet and buy stars such as Sadio Mane or Mathis de Ligt in this transfer period. Actually, Bayern is known in the Bundesliga to correct their team with stars as quickly as possible as their number on priority after the Bundesliga is to always win the Champions League. With a paid off stadium (Allianz Arena) and strategic sponsoring, this club is without a doubt one of the most successful in European football at the moment. The problem is whether they can keep up with their philosophy with other clubs.

Information taken from Source

Comparison To Other Big Clubs

This leads me to the next chapter: the comparison with other big European names. If we compare them to the Spanish clubs, you would quickly recognize that the economic background of Bayern Munich is much more solid than the one of FC Barcelona for example. While one club has no debt and is working economically clean, the other one is just stinking of debt and destroying its own future.
Furthermore, Bayern Munich is a club that is still in its own hand. What do I mean by that? Well, while there are a lot of English clubs that are completely owned and run by families or shady investors from the east, Bayern Munich is still its own club. Granted, it is giving away portions of itself to private investors such Adidas or Audi, but they are making sure to keep more than 50% in its own hand. Actually, this is a big rule in the German Bundesliga and while I think that this is not helping them to be competitive internationally, it is certainly helping to be a healthy and well maintained clubs.

Speaking of international competitiveness, this year is actually not that bad for the Bundesliga, which shows that this model has its potential. Of course the Premier League will outpace them over the next decade because of its attractiveness but for now, it really does not look that bad. Anyways, this is probably also a big reason why Bayern Munich was always against the formation of a Super League. While they would have had the chance to get a big bag of money, the integrity of football is more important for them which makes them very likeable in my opinion.

Controversy

Saying that, many German football fans would probably disagree. In their opinion, Bayern Munich is always destroying the Bundesliga. For starters, they are always buying the best players in the Bundesliga from their competitors. While this was true a few years ago, when Bayern Munich as buying names such as Mario Götze, Mario Gomez, Robert Lewandowski or Miroslav Klose, the past years were different. I think that Bayern Munich recognized that the Bundesliga is not as strong as it was before and searching for stars outside of their league. The role of internal buying is now with Borussia Dortmund who are slowly evolving from a talent acquisition club to a more serious contender like they were a few years ago.

Another very shady fact is that Bayern Munich was making beneficial deals for themselves when other clubs were on the edge of bankruptcy. The best example would be probably the buy-out of their local opponent 1860 Munich. Until the early 2010s both clubs were playing in the Allianz Arena, while owning a certain percentage. After a while 1860 Munich financial situation was getting worse and Bayern Munich offered them to help out. The deal was dirty and very much to the advantage of Bayern Munich but it was the only way that 1860 would still be alive today. In my opinion t all comes down to basic economy and that nobody is supposed to give away money for free. Yes, Bayern Munich should not be too proud of this deal in terms of helping others but they defiantly got a great deal economic wise out of it.

With that being said, I think that this club has a great fundament to be successful in the next few years. But the problems are already on the horizon. With the Premier League and Spanish League securing the bigger bags in terms of TV marketing the Bundesliga will just not be able to compete in the future. I am very curious to see what path Bayern Munich will go to stay relevant internationally. What are your thoughts on this club?

Published by ga38jem on
Sports Talk Social
On 28th October 2022