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The DFL would like to sell its product, especially internationally, for much more money in the future. So she has to hope for a German champion Borussia Dortmund, even if the little change would only be cosmetic.
It is currently pointless to demand neutrality from the leading men in the German Football League (DFL). One managing director, Oliver Leki, will hope that SC Freiburg will qualify for the Champions League because he is the sports club’s CFO. The other managing director, Axel Hellmann, will hope that Eintracht Frankfurt will return to Europe, preferably by beating RB Leipzig in the cup. Hellmann is the board spokesman for Hessen.
Hans-Joachim Watzke is spokesman for the Presidium and Chairman of the DFL Supervisory Board. Above all, he is the managing director of Borussia Dortmund. He will therefore be rooting for BVB on Saturday (05/27/2023), who would become champions with a win against 1. FSV Mainz 05.
Variety for growth
Jan-Christian Dreesen should also be rooting for BVB, despite being deputy chairman of Bayern Munich. However, Dreesen is also represented in the DFL’s “Future Scenarios Working Group”.
For the past few months, this consortium has been pushing ahead with a plan to recruit an investor who should bring a lot of money with him in order to make a lot more money in the next two decades. The deal fell through, but that doesn’t change the fact that the DFL sees growth potential above all in international markets and in digitization.
The league wants to make their product more beautiful, package it in a contemporary way and then sell it at a higher price. That sounds like a coherent plan, but the crucial element is missing: the league needs to become more interesting.
Three out of four places in the Champions League virtually awarded
Since the 2018/19 season, FC Bayern, Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig have always qualified for the Champions League. There is nothing to suggest that this will change in the coming years. If you have a lot of money, you get even more, especially from the bulging Champions League pot.
Realistically, every season it’s all about who gets fourth place for the elite European league, which is set to make even more money in the future.
Nice history in Nigeria a side note
This season, 1. FC Union Berlin or SC Freiburg will grab fourth place. This is a wonderful story for anyone interested in football romance and appreciates a job well done. But in Nigeria it will remain a side note.
Axel Hellmann recently mentioned Nigeria explicitly as a market in which the DFL sees great marketing potential. That may even be the case, but with a boring league it becomes difficult to raise the potential.
Bayern Munich has won the championship ten times in a row, sometimes by a huge margin. Turnover and salary costs are significantly higher than the other clubs, even compared to Borussia Dortmund, which in turn can spend much more than SC Freiburg, for example.
Case for the cartel office
If a competition is damaged in this way, a cartel office intervenes in other sectors. In football, the situation should be further cemented, because according to the DFL, the hoped-for billions from the investor deal would have been distributed to the clubs “close to the current distribution key”. It is doubtful whether this will change in the future.
A Borussia Dortmund championship would therefore only be cosmetic, but at least it would come at the right time if the Bundesliga is to become a global brand without an investor.
Alternative to the departure of FC Bayern
It would be disillusioning if FC Bayern were to keep the game after this season, which has been a disaster for them before the last matchday.
Unless the league would seriously develop a scenario that represents an alternative to Bayern migrating to the Super League, which is already taking shape with the reformed Champions League. Nicely packaged so that it can still sell well, even with many fans.