Anger after the super deal burst
The Bundesliga is now even threatened with a split
May 25, 2023, 2:11 p.m
The failed investor entry at the DFL has far-reaching consequences. There are big question marks behind the future of the league association. Even a split between the two top leagues seems conceivable. Someone saw the disaster coming.
Of course, the smart ex-boss knew it beforehand. He “expected this decision,” commented Christian Seifert on the collapsed billion dollar deal from the German Football League (DFL) – and predicted far-reaching consequences for professional football. In fact, the failed investor entry could herald a turning point in the League Association. The rebellion against the industry leaders was just the beginning, the big bang is imminent.
The league is more divided than ever, with interests miles apart. The little ones are no longer intimidated by the big ones, the future DFL boss has to guard a powder keg – the risk of explosion increases almost every minute. With the forthcoming tender for the media rights for the cycle from the 2025/26 season, the whole place could blow up, and an end to the DFL in its current form now seems a likely scenario.
Seifert sees this coming and urged the clubs to “question” the structure of the DFL. However, it could be too late for gentle changes when the top clubs around Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund create hard facts. In his anger at the investors’ opponents around 1. FC Köln, VfB Stuttgart and Schalke 04, BVB boss Hans-Joachim Watzke let it be known that he no longer wants to subsidize those who refuse the failed two-billion deal.
Distribution of the billions becomes a contentious issue
“No one should come to me with solidarity issues in the near future. We have transferred numerous rights to the central marketing to strengthen solidarity. My people at BVB have calculated what it costs us,” said the DFL supervisory board boss: ” We gave the league our outstretched arms and if that’s not what they want, the bigger clubs will think about what’s next.”
It could continue with BVB and Bayern marketing their media rights themselves in the tender next spring – which would deprive the rest of professional football of a large part of its income. Rights without Bayern and BVB would be worth far less than the 1.3 billion euros that are currently available from Germany and abroad per season.
However, the opponents of investors consciously took this risk, because they are striving – with the backing of the fan groups – to revolutionize the distribution anyway. “From our point of view, a fundamental debate about the distribution mechanism is necessary,” said Schalke CEO Bernd Schröder: “A distribution that is too strongly based on sporting success does not lead to maximizing the attractiveness of the Bundesliga.”
Heavy legacy for the new DFL boss
The big question seems to be how attractive the league will be in the future. After all, the interim bosses Axel Hellmann and Oliver Leki, who were leaving at the end of June, had calculated an investment requirement of two billion euros.
Even if critics consider this sum to be too high and half to be sufficient, the question remains as to where the money for the targeted digitization of the clubs and the development of a DFL streaming platform should come from. “I’m not up to my neck in debt,” Watzke announced.
The question of financing, the different approaches of the internationally ambitious clubs and the nationally oriented clubs, the rights tender, the question of the identity and future vision of the league – the new boss, who according to Watzke should come in July, inherits all these problems.
The outgoing Bayern CFO Jan-Christian Dreesen, the Super League consultant Bernd Reichart and the former Hoffenheim managing director Peter Görlich are traded as candidates for the difficult job. It doesn’t matter who it is – nobody has to pay entertainment tax.