DFL clubs meet on Thursday
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When big money is at stake, the dispute is predictable. At an extraordinary general meeting on Thursday morning in Frankfurt am Main, the distribution of the TV billions will be discussed. Especially at the request of several second division teams, the day before the following meeting of the executive board there was a verbal exchange of blows over the crucial question: Who will get how much money from the TV pot of more than 5.3 billion euros in the next four seasons?
Hans-Joachim Watzke, chairman of the German Football League, set the tone for the distribution debate several months ago. Watzke said after the investor deal collapsed that “please no one should come to him again in the near future” with “solidarity issues”. Since then, it has primarily been lower-class traditional clubs that have positioned themselves and demanded higher income. But the top earner FC Bayern Munich also took a clear position. The fight for money from foreign marketing is particularly explosive.
Bavaria’s Dreesen on TV money: “Solidarity means justice”
Shortly after the new domestic TV contracts were signed, Bayern CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen demanded “that our performance in distribution be clearly rewarded. Solidarity should not mean slowing down or slowing down the strong. Solidarity means justice: Those who drive the league must be rewarded accordingly – otherwise they endanger their own future.
4.484 billion euros are available for distribution for the four seasons from 2025/26 to 2028/29 from domestic marketing. In addition, there is around 215 million euros per season from foreign marketing, which is currently being collected.
The currently valid key for distribution is a compromise from the last discussion and is quite complicated. From the money from domestic marketing there is a base amount of around 26 million euros for each first division team and 7.4 million euros for each second division team. This equal distribution share is 50 percent.
Fan interest only plays a small part in the distribution of TV money
The performance share is 43 percent. To do this, the rankings from previous years are converted, meaning that FC Bayern, as the last most successful club, receives the highest share and the newcomers receive the least. The two pillars of young talent (4 percent) and interest (3 percent) have a small share in the distribution key.
In particular, well-known second division teams such as FC Schalke 04 and Hamburger SV should give greater weight to the interest currently measured through surveys. Reference is made to the English Premier League and the Spanish LaLiga, where interest in the distribution of TV money accounts for 25 percent. HSV and Schalke were among the 20 teams with the highest average attendance in their stadiums worldwide in the 2024 calendar year. 13 second division teams are among the top 50 in the statistics (read the details here!).
Clubs such as 1. FSV Mainz 05, which are part of the large group of smaller players, see things differently. Sports director Christian Heidel teased in the “Frankfurter Rundschau” that it was noticeable “that those who have the biggest financial problems are heard the loudest.” Heidel continued: “If football is no longer about performance, the alarm bells must ring. “
New distribution of TV money: opinion makers from Hamburg
One of the opinion makers in the distribution discussion is Oke Göttlich, President of FC St. Pauli and member of the DFL Executive Committee. He sees the extraordinary general meeting this Thursday as “mainly a sign of the powerlessness of the small and medium-sized clubs, which in the previous three distribution debates felt that little consideration was being given to them.”
The move to change the distribution of foreign revenue, from which the internationally playing clubs receive most of the money, has the potential to cause the most trouble for the top clubs. “It is the only pot that brings even more injustice,” argued Göttlich in “Kicker”.
Tone in the TV money debate is “rougher and tougher”
When it comes to TV money from abroad, FC Bayern benefits most from the successes of previous years and will receive more than 35 million euros from this pot in the current season. Accordingly, the record champions are against changes. More than a third of the first division clubs only receive the minimum of around 4.2 million euros from the foreign pot.
“I notice that the tone, including the public one, has become rougher and harder,” commented Axel Hellmann in “Sport Bild”. The boss of Eintracht Frankfurt, who also sits on the DFL executive committee, said: “When I hear the diversity of these suggestions, I have no idea how a consensus can be reached between 36 clubs with a range from Bayern Munich to Jahn Regensburg.”
TV money debate: Time is running out until licensing
A decision cannot be made at the meeting of the 36 professional clubs. The Presidium, which meets on Friday, is responsible for this. It seems unlikely that a new distribution key will be presented afterwards. Time is of the essence.
The clubs must submit their license documents for the coming season to the DFL by March 15th. “I don’t know how it’s supposed to work that in the meantime we go through groundbreaking changes to the distribution system, discuss the practical consequences and then present the clubs with a fait accompli regarding possible shifts on the distribution axis,” said Hellmann.
