German football has been enjoying a renaissance of late. The German national team was a revelation in South Africa, wowing audiences with their expansive brand of attacking football. All of Joachim Löw’s 23 man squad played their football in their native Germany in the Bundesliga which raises the question: is the Bundesliga closing the gap on the Premier League and La Liga as the best league in the world?
Like its Spanish counterpart, the Bundesliga has long been a champion of youth development. Recent figures have shown that Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 clubs have invested more than €80 million annually into their academy systems; a sum which has been used to produce all of the players who excelled in South Africa. The youth system underwent a radical overhaul in 2002 following Germany’s embarrassing group stage exit at the Euro 2000 tournament with the DFL (Deutche Fußball Liga) introducing centralised regulation on all Bundesliga team academies. The system has been in place for 8 years but only now can we see the benefits of such a system with players such as Mesut Özil, Sami Khedira and Thomas Müller all products of the centrally-regulated Bundesliga youth academies. The success of the national team is a vindication of the work that the DFL have put in place at the youth level and will serve to enhance the quality of both the players and the league in general.
The proliferation of technically gifted young players who ply their trade in the domestic league has led to the Bundesliga to be characterised by an expansive, attractive attacking style of football that is high on drama and of course goals. The Bundesliga season kicked off in earnest last week with the new Adidas Torfabrik (goal factory) ball and on the basis of last week’s action, the ball and the league certainly lived up to its reputation.
Matchday 2 in the Bundesliga produced an incredible 37 goals in 9 games. Mainz rallied from 3-0 down at half time to defeat Steve McClaren’s Wolfsburg team 4-3 and Bayern Munich, the perennial powerhouse of German football were defeated 2-0 by newly promoted Kaiserslautern. Leverkusen and Borussia Mönchengladbach shared a 9 goal thriller at the BayArena with Gladbach coming away with the spoils as 6-3 victors.
With all the goals that have been scored so far, it would be a shame if the stands weren’t full of fans there to see all of the action for themselves. Fortunately for the Bundesliga, that isn’t a problem as the league boasts the highest attendance of all the major European leagues.
According to The Observer, the Bundesliga attracted an average attendance of 41,904 last season. In comparison, the Premier League’s average was only 35,592 while La Liga’s was a distant third in with 28,478 fans. Serie A managed 25,304 while Ligue 1 was the least frequently attended major European league with 25,304 fans turning up for games last season.
The popularity of the Bundesliga owes much to the focus that the clubs put on the fans. The ticket prices in the Bundesliga are much lower than the rest of the European leagues. For example, the average ticket price at the Westfalenstadion, Borussia Dortmund’s home ground will cost you around €15. Many German clubs also limit the number of season ticket holders that they have in order to give other fans the opportunity to come and see games and encourage new support. Compare this to the situation at Manchester United where the club are begging season ticket holders to renew their expensive deals as a last-ditch attempt to drum up some much needed support.
The importance of the fan is extended to the administration of Bundesliga clubs which stipulate that a minimum of 51% of any club must be owned by club members. This system ensures that there is less risk of financial implosion as the club is being run by genuine supporters rather than opportunist businessmen looking to make a quick buck.
Club finances are also regulated by the DFL’s rules, the Lizenzierungsordnung which imposes restrictions on how much a club can spend on wages and controls the level of debt a club has to ensure that Bundesliga clubs are for the most part run in a fiscally prudent way.
This financial prudence hasn’t stopped the league from attracting some of the biggest names in world football to play in the German league. Bayern Munich have managed to sign two of the world’s most exciting wingers in Franck Ribéry and Arjen Robben. Hamburg have former Manchester United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy on their books while Shalke have bolstered their frontline with Real Madrid legend Raúl joining the club alonside fellow countryman Klaas Jan Huntelaar.
The plethora of talent that is on display week in week out in the Bundesliga has led to the German league overtaking the Italian league in 3rd place in the UEFA co-efficient rankings which would allow the Bundesliga an extra Champions League spot next season. Currently the top 3 teams in the Bundesliga qualify for Champions League football but if the Germans were to hold on to their spot a fourth team can enter the Champions League qualifying round. This is by no means set in stone but with the way that the Bundesliga has started out, it is their spot to lose.
While Bayern Munich reached the Champions League final last year, there is still a long way to go for German clubs in Europe’s top club competition. It has been 9 years since a German club has lifted the famous cup and German teams have found themselves failing at the last hurdle. If the Bundesliga wants to be classed in the same league as the Premier League and La Liga, it must make the step up by winning a major European trophy this season.
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