Live on January 30, 2019 What can the Bundesliga learn from the Premier League? Recently, former Bayern president Rummenigge published an article in Bild about why the Premier League can be at a leading level and how the Bundesliga should catch up with the Premier League.
The following is the content of Rummenigge's article:
In the Premier League, there is a person I really admire, and that is Manchester City manager Guardiola, or more precisely, in the English league, he is a manager. He left Bayern in 2016 and he is willing to take on a new challenge in the Premier League.
Bayern have had a lot of great coaches, three of whom I really like: Heynckes, Frick and Pepp (Guardiola). I'm still in a friendly relationship with them, but I'm following the Premier League not just because of Pep, but also because there's the most attractive football. Fast, goals, strong confrontation, and currently higher quality than in the Bundesliga.
The Premier League can be said to set a benchmark for European football on both a competitive and economic level, and it is the most profitable and interesting league in the world, not only because of internal competitiveness, but also because English clubs are also competitive internationally.
There's no place where the appeal to stars and coaches is as great as it is in the Premier League
In the Champions League round of 16, which starts in February, four Premier League teams are competing: defending champions Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United – more than any other country's league. In the champions league finals of the past three years, two have been the Premier League civil war, liverpool vs Tottenham hotspur in 2019 and Chelsea vs Manchester City in 2021. In UEFA points, England are also significantly ahead of Spain, Italy, Germany and France.
Unlike the Bundesliga, there are five or six teams in the Premier League that can play an important role in the Champions League, and the appeal to top international stars and coaches is unmatched anywhere else. Salah from Egypt, Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portuguese compatriots, Belgium's De Bruyne and many more, they all show their positions in the Premier League every week. There are also German internationals: Havertz, Gundogan, Werner and Rudiger.
The best coaches are also competing fiercely in this most watched league, with three Germans: Liverpool's Klopp, Chelsea's Tuchel and Manchester United's Lonnick, plus Pep as four former Bundesliga coaches. There is also a very outstanding and successful coach like Conte who is coaching Tottenham.
All this has made the Premier League, the most international league, a long-term and warm welcome around the world. Of course, there are also historical reasons for this, the advantages of English as a world language.
Today's success is all based on the founding of the Premier League in 1992, which has a unique chairman, Richard Scuda Morey, who has raised the marketing of the league to a level that no one could have imagined before.
Here are two factors that play a decisive role:
One is that the Premier League got rid of free-to-air television broadcasts in the UK and opted for pay TV from the start, although initially this was met with fan addresses;
The second is to allow interested investors to take over the club 100% and have decision-making power.
Higher incomes, sustained and bold investments, investments not only in players and coaches, but also in more sustainable infrastructure. Especially in terms of television broadcasting, they have come a long way. The Premier League's revenue grew by 35% in three years to a staggering €4.8 billion in overseas broadcasts. In contrast, the Bundesliga currently has around €160 million in overseas broadcast revenue, which is only one-tenth of the Premier League's broadcast revenue!
All of this data shows that the current power relationship in European football is becoming entrenched, and money can help you achieve your goals, which cannot be shaken. The Bundesliga learned a lot from the Premier League, which was a role model, and was more creative.
If we want to stay ahead of the curve in Europe, I think a serious and rational discussion of the "50+1" policy is absolutely necessary. We at Bayern have always believed that each club should decide for itself whether and to what extent it is open to investors, and we must at least be able to discuss this possibility in order to make the Bundesliga more attractive and exciting.
I know that in a country like Germany, where there is a strong traditional football atmosphere, it is difficult to discuss such a topic. Clubs like St. Pauli, for example, may never consider opening up to investors. But the truth is that we have three clubs that have circumvented the "50+1" policy through special regulations of the German Football Association and the Bundesliga (Bayer Leverkusen, Wolfsburg, Hoffenheim).
So, I think every club should have the same rights. From my personal point of view, clubs should not be barred from liberalizing new investment models. Some of the old clubs that have been badly damaged and are dormant in the second and third tiers should have a chance to regain their attention. Look at the rapid rise of Manchester City, who at the turn of the century were still only a third-tier team in the UK.
The success of the Premier League also has a relationship with top management, and the Bundesliga also has a great expert like Seiffert, who has a lot of ideas, but he is hindered by many clubs, especially from the Bundesliga. If people had been more open to Seiffert's ideas over the years, the Bundesliga would now be more competitive at home and abroad.
At some point the Bundesliga was unable to catch up with the Pace of the Premier League
As the DFL (German Professional Football League) ushered in a new leadership, the Bundesliga also ushered in new opportunities. The new chairman of the supervisory board, Váczk, and the new manager Hopfen will look for new ways to shape the Bundesliga, responding to demand from overseas to make the German league more popular.
The international marketing of the Bundesliga is an area that needs to be improved urgently, but the quality of the league is the decisive content. Overseas, fans focus only on top-level showdowns, not on who will be relegated.
I don't think tv and media contracts have reached their maximum, and if we think that the whole can only get to where it is now, then the Bundesliga listing in the transfer market will not be able to catch up with the Pace of the Premier League. Then there won't be top stars in the Bundesliga in the future, and coaches like Klopp, Tuchel, Guardiola won't be back here, at least not so quickly.
Of course, traditional football is still an important part of England, and historically, football was born there. We need some courage now, to make the tradition a little less, to dare to innovate.
(zoli)