There can be no better time than now to be a German football fan. The national side only just won their fourth World Cup and are looking like a force to be reckoned with. In Bayern Munich, they have a side who supplied much of the ammunition for the national side and are looking increasingly like one of the sides to beat in not just Germany, but Europe as well. They have a League which is one of the most exciting in Europe, with most clubs striving to play a brand of free-flowing attacking football that is not just exciting to watch, but also inexpensive as well.
So, things are looking good, isn’t it? Wrong. While it is true that the League is pretty competitive, at the top, it isn’t. The Bayern juggernaut continues to roll on and not only are they making a mockery of the League, but are buying the League’s best players in a bid to ensure that their monopoly is maintained. Nothing illustrates this point further than Borussia Dortmund’s new signing Matthias Ginter.
Germany’s youngest-ever World Cup winner, the 20-year-old centre back moved from Freiburg to Dortmund. While Dortmund would’ve been ecstatic at having got this talented youngster for next to nothing, what they wouldn’t be happy with is the terms of his contract. Ginter signed a three-year contract with an option for a fourth year at Bayern Munich. In essence, what it means is that he is a Bayern Munich player, who is on loan at Dortmund for three years, where can develop himself and once he truly becomes a world-class player, the Bavarians can just have him, no questions asked.
Is this really what it has come to? The Bavarians have arguably one of the finest youth academies in Europe, which has produced the likes of Phillip Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger and David Alaba in the recent past. Yet, the club are keen on scuppering their rivals’ chances of catching them in the League. If and when Ginter does move to Bavaria, he won’t be the first one to do so. Mario Götze left in acrimonious circumstances last year and Robert Lewandowski left this year on a free and there are also reports Marco Reus is likely to join them in the not too distant future.
What this has meant for the Bundesliga is that it has become a dreary affair in the past couple of seasons with Bayern running away with it. Although Dortmund won back-to-back League titles in 2011 and 2012, if Bayern continue to buy their best players each season, they are unlikely to threaten their dominance any time soon. While comparisons have been made with La Liga, at least in Spain, there is a duopoly with both Real Madrid and Barcelona capable of winning it. But in Germany, there only seems to be one winner.
Last season, Bayern won it with a 19 point advantage and seven games to spare. The year before that it was 25 points. On both occasions the second-placed team were Dortmund who are struggling to cope with the loss of their best players every summer. What makes matters even worse is the commercial dominance of Bayern Munich.
The Bavarians are the biggest club in Germany and the revenue they earn easily outstrips the rest of the League. Not only do they have one of the best youth teams in Europe, but they also have the financial muscle to buy any player in Germany. That coupled with the natural aura surrounding the club, makes them irresistible to a prospective player.
If things continue this way, the rest of the League will be left fighting for second-place as first is well and truly out of their reach. Already this is looking to be the case and in a couple of more years, it wouldn’t be a surprise to Bayern winning all their League games and setting a new record in the process.
This Bayern dominance is bad news for the League, which prides itself on being competitive and entertaining. For all of its demerits, the Premier League is still a much harder League to predict than any other European League and that is what makes it the most-watched League in the world. If the German Bundesliga wants itself to be taken seriously, they need to do something about Bayern Munich, who are just ruining the competition in Germany. These are certainly interesting times for the Bundesliga, which is turning into Bayern monopoly.
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