One Aspect Where the Bundesliga is Ahead of the Premiership?

Two seasons ago, La Liga recorded average attendances of 28,478 fans, the French Ligue 1 21,034, Serie A 25,304 and the Premier League 35,592, but these figures were smashed by the Bundesliga’s average of 41,904. A significant factor contributing to the Bundesliga’s success is that its clubs pay less than 50% of their revenue on players’ wages – the lowest in Europe – and substantially less than the 62% Premier League clubs spent in the 2007-08 season, which is now even higher following Manchester City’s extravagant spending over the three campaigns since these figures were released.

The most extraordinary aspect of Germany’s financial management is that it has been achieved despite the Bundesliga’s television income being a modest 600million Euros compared with the Premier League’s lucrative return of over £2billion. Seifert rationalizes this discrepancy: “When pay-TV was introduced in 1991, the average household already received 34 channels for free. Therefore we had the most competitive free TV market in the world, so this influenced the growth of pay-TV very much. We were forced to show all of the 612 games of the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 live on pay-TV. So we have to carry the production costs of this.”

Seifert, however, refuses to use the small return from television rights as justification for German teams’ recent failings in European competition: “Bayern Munich is ranked in the first four clubs of Europe, and bear in mind even Chelsea, which spent a hell of a lot of money in the last years, didn’t win it. Sometimes you could have the feeling that the ability to win the Champions League goes in line with your willingness to burn a hell of a lot of money. For that reason I think Uefa is on very good track with their financial fair play idea.”

I tend to agree with him on this point because money has never been the defining factor in Champions’ League success, as of course Porto and Monaco proved by reaching the final in 2004. The trend is more often than not a cyclical process, evidenced by German football’s dominance at the end of the last century when two Bundesliga clubs won the Champions’ League and a further two reached the final between 1997 and 2002, but European tournaments are also not always justification for the strength of a country’s domestic competition. As we all know, Bayern Munich are traditionally, and currently, the best club representative from the Bundesliga, but the title has been shared between four different sides in the past five seasons, a refreshing divergence from Manchester United’s Premiership dominance, spanning the past three decades. Surely this level of competition offers spectators the most exciting and unpredictable league in Europe, particularly when compared to La Liga, where just two teams compete for dominance year after year.

Each observer will have a different set of criteria for what constitutes the best league, but the Bundesliga, since its post-2006 World Cup transformation, appears to triumph in every department. The issues which persistently trouble English fans are managed with typical German efficiency, including the aforementioned ticket prices, transport, club finances, home-grown talent, national side and league competition. The entertainment factor is, and always will be, up for debate, but the Bundesliga is beginning to cast the Premiership in to the shadows.

The article was written by Josh Sheridan for FootballFancast.com. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at FFC – ed.

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