Chelsea play Bayern Munich in the Champions League final on Saturday, so you know what that means: a week-long love-in with the Bundesliga.
Remember when Spain had the greatest teams and all we heard about was the marvellous socios? That was the way to run a league, apparently, clubs in the ownership of the supporters, no nasty foreign types holding board meetings on the subcontinent or sprinkling fairy dust on mediocrities beyond the traditional elite.
Then it turned out the socios were just as selfishly driven as any Russian oligarch, that the two biggest clubs in La Liga, Real Madrid and Barcelona, kept the rest in a swamp of comparative poverty that made the Scottish Premier League appear enlightened, and suddenly Spain did not look so good any more.
Enter Germany’s Bundesliga. High attendances, low ticket prices, free travel on match days, a majority of club shares have to be in the hands of supporters’ groups and you can even stand and have a pint. Best of all, unlike our own game, nobody goes skint because common sense rules.
That is the perception anyway. German football is increasingly depicted as the perfect model; the one to follow. The precarious fiscal state of our Premier League would not exist in Germany, we are told, because strict controls ensure financial prudence. Not exactly. German football is most certainly different; but not necessarily in the way we think.
Technically, there has never been an insolvent club in the Bundesliga, compared to 54 across English professional football since the Premier League was formed in 1992; but the Bundesliga is only 36 clubs, compared to our 92 and counting. Northwich Victoria, Farsley Celtic and Salisbury City are included in English football’s insolvencies, plus seven other teams from the Conference, while six clubs — Leeds United, Luton Town, Bournemouth, Rotherham United, Southampton and Portsmouth — account for 22.5 per cent of the insolvencies, having gone under more than once.
Expand German football similarly and the myth of stability evaporates. We don’t have to time travel to the last century, either. Here is a list of insolvencies or clubs that have been punished for financial irregularities in Germany since 2008, if extended to include competitions comparable to the Football League (Liga 3 and Regionalliga) and Conference (Oberliga plus various regional leagues).
2008: SV Darmstadt 98 (former Bundesliga, now Liga 3, insolvency); 1FC Gladbeck (former second division, now regional league, no licence); SpVgg Erkenschwick (former Bundesliga, now regional league, insolvency); Yesilyurt Berlin (Oberliga, insolvent, folded); FSV Bayreuth (regional league, insolvency).
2009: Sachsen Leipzig (former East German champions, then regional league, insolvency); Altona 93 (Regionalliga Nord, no licence); Kickers Emden (then Liga 3, now regional league, no licence); FSV Oggersheim (Regionalliga West, no licence); Viktoria Aschaffenburg (regional league, no licence); TSV Grossbardorf (Regionalliga Sud, no licence).
2010: Tennis Borussia Berlin (former Bundesliga, now regional league, insolvency); Hansa Rostock II (Oberliga, voluntarily relegated); Rot-Weiss Essen (former Bundesliga, former champions, European Cup competitors, now Regionalliga West, no licence); Bonner SC (regional league, insolvency); SV Waldhof Mannheim (former Bundesliga, Regionalliga West, no licence); SSV Reutlingen 05 (former Bundesliga, then Oberliga, insolvency); TSV Eintracht Bamberg (Regionalliga Sud, insolvency, folded); VfLGermania Leer (regional league, insolvency); Viktoria Aschaffenburg (insolvency); Preussen Hameln (regional league, no licence, club later folded).
2011: TuS Koblenz (former Bundesliga, then Liga 3, no licence); Sachsen Leipzig (insolvency, folded); RW Ahlen (former Bundesliga, then Liga 3, insolvency); SSV Ulm 1846 (former Bundesliga, now regional league, insolvency); SpVgg Weiden (Regionalliga Sud, insolvency); SpVgg Erkenschwick (no license); 1FC Kleve (Regionalliga West, insolvency).
2012: Turkiyemspor Berlin (Oberliga, insolvency); SC Borea Dresden (Oberliga, voluntarily relegated mid-season for financial reasons); VfL Kirchheim (Oberliga, voluntarily relegated midseason for financial reasons); Eintracht Nordhorn (regional league, insolvency; Kickers Emden (insolvency).
Phew. For a system that is so perfectly structured that’s quite a catalogue of financial disaster. And while most of the names will be unfamiliar, the citizens of Bamberg probably haven’t heard of Farsley Celtic or Rotherham United.
Not all of these clubs are minnows, either. SV Waldhof Mannheim have a ground capacity equivalent to Stoke City. Nor are the sums involved minuscule. Bonner SC were £5.61m in debt.
Yet for the really big bucks, go right to the top. For while no Bundesliga team have become insolvent, quite a few have had a fair tilt at it, only to be bailed out in a way that English clubs simply are not.
Take Hansa Rostock. Bottom of Bundesliga 2, with debts of £6.81m, they risked being busted down to the amateur ranks until the local council stepped in last week with an aid package, including a partial waiver of tax debt, the purchase of property located in Hansa’s training complex and a significant grant.
Not that they can afford it. The state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in which Rostock is situated, is the poorest in Germany and below the European Union average in terms of gross domestic product per capita.
Yet Rostock’s escape is a familiar one. Alemannia Aachen, who will be joining them in Liga 3 next season, were also rescued from debt by the city council, having got into trouble upgrading their stadium, under pressure from the Bundesliga’s administrators. Alemannia spent £50m they didn’t have and then had to be saved with two 45-year loans.There may be trouble ahead, however, as one of those agreements was only reached on the proviso Alemannia remained a Bundesliga concern. Still, as of next season, they are not the Bundesliga’s problem, so another potential insolvency will not go down to European football’s perfect financial model.
No bankruptcies then, but there have been some close shaves. Eintracht Frankfurt have twice been docked points for financial misdeeds, as were Kaiserslautern, who were in such a mess they mortgaged their star player, Miroslav Klose, to the state lottery.
TSV Munich 1860 were forced to sell their half of the AllianzArena to Bayern Munich to stay afloat, while Schalke 04 had debts of £248m two years ago. Meanwhile, SportFive get the first 20 per cent of all monies earned by Hamburg in perpetuity for financing their new stadium, the name of which has changed three times in nine years. And when the politicians or big business won’t help, the league or a rival club obliges. Current champions Borussia Dortmund came so close to going under they were only saved by a £1.6m loan from rivals Bayern Munich — a deal so straightforward and above board that it went unmentioned until recently, close to a decade later.
Last year, Arminia Bielefeld were relegated after £1m to pay player wages was advanced by the Bundesliga in exchange for a three-point deduction that saw them become Liga 3’s problem.
The only reason Germany’s Bundesliga has not had three insolvencies in as many seasons is because the administrators, government or local councils have acted in a way that is foreign to the English game.
The nearest Tube station to the Emirates Stadium is Holloway Road (not, as many believe, Arsenal). Yet Holloway Road is all but closed on match days because Transport for London decided it did not want to upgrade the exit facilities which currently consist of a winding staircase and lifts. Money set aside for an escalator project ended up being spent elsewhere.
Compare this to Germany, where the Munich clubs received £168.7m from city and regional governments to develop the infrastructure around the AllianzArena, including an upgraded railway station and a broadened motorway with new exit.
German clubs can be supporter-owned because the state often picks up the tab left for English club owners. It is this inclusive thinking that allows Bundesliga match tickets to double as train passes — a fine plan, but not so easy to implement when the journey to Old Trafford might pass through several privatised networks.
And there is the issue. The problem with the new financial rules that will govern European football is that they work on the principle that one size fits all, when clearly it does not. The German model differs from the Spanish model which differs from the English model, if there is a model at all. Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the Premier League, does not believe a single defined structure exists — and looking at the ownership of, say, Wigan Athletic and Blackburn Rovers, he may be right.
Certainly, in Germany, the state appears to have greater appreciation of football’s worth to the community. Hertha Berlin did not provide any of the £194.5m required to redevelop the Olympiastadion; 1FC Koln’s stadium reconstruction was financed by the city of Cologne; the city of Frankfurt paid for the £120.5m refit for Eintracht Frankfurt; Stuttgart’s stadium is owned by a council-controlled subsidiary and central government went half in with Lokomotiv Leipzig.
German football has its own way of surviving the recession and parts of their model are truly admirable, but to argue that the Bundesliga blueprint is for all to follow, is an over-simplification. English clubs get it wrong; but so do German ones. The difference is the state-sponsored safety net.
