One Aspect Where the Bundesliga is Ahead of the Premiership?

Queens Park Rangers and Norwich City have been promoted to the Premier League this week and a certain struggle against relegation awaits the two clubs next season in Europe’s richest and most watched league competition. But is the Premiership as good as its hype? No English team reached further than the quarter-final of the Champions’ League last term and several world-class talents have departed these shores to achieve their goals abroad, notably Xabi Alonso and Cristiano Ronaldo, in recent seasons.

Last summer, Germany displayed their precious quality on the international stage at the World Cup in South Africa, which was a result of years of financial and technical development at club level. Now, many observers are beginning to see a shifting of power away from England and towards the German Bundesliga, especially considering UEFA’s financial fair play rules are to be implemented imminently, so could it be argued that the Bundesliga is overtaking the Premiership as the best league on the continent?

The most important difference between the two is that in Germany, the fans are priority. The Bundesliga has the lowest ticket prices and the highest average attendance of Europe’s five major leagues. Borussia Dortmund, who last month secured the league title, boast a stand at their Westfalenstadion home which holds 26,000, the biggest stand at any football stadium in Europe, and costs little more than £10 for admission on match-days. Clubs limit the number of season tickets to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to attend games, and the away team always retains the right to 10% of the available capacity. What’s more, match tickets also double as free rail passes which guarantees supporters at least one easy transport route to games, and the perception of travelling fans is as far removed from the hooligan culture in England as possible.

The Bundesliga is possibly Europe’s only major domestic league whose clubs collectively make a profit, but no German team has won the Champions League for ten years, if we assume Schalke will fail to defeat Manchester United in Wednesday’s semi-final second leg. That said, Bayern Munich reached last years final and Schalke’s presence at this late stage indicates an encouraging future for German sides in Europe’s premier club competition. “The Bundesliga as a brand, a competition, is in good shape. We have a very, very interesting competition, a stable and sustainable business model that relies on three revenue sources,” explains Bundesliga chief executive, Christian Seifert. These three features of German football’s development are match-day revenue, sponsorships and broadcast income, amounting to a turnover of 1.7billion Euros last season.

These figures couldn’t contrast the state of English sport any more, where week after week a different football league club is placed in to administration and where top teams like Manchester United and Liverpool build on their mountains of debt. In Spain, club debts are just as high, in France, Ligue 1 clubs spend more of their income on wages than any other league, and in Italy, stadiums are regularly half-filled. Germany’s success is based on putting supporters first, which, despite the Bundesliga taking home around 350million Euros less than the Premier League in match-day revenues each year, has seen attendances surpass every other major domestic league in Europe.