Transcription
At the end of last month, Hamburg kicked off their season against Schalke. The Veltins-Arena, one of the grandest arenas in European football, was packed out to the brim as a sellout crowd of 57,000 turned up to watch two of Germany's most illustrious clubs lock horns.
Hamburg are six-time German champions, three-time DFB-Pokal winners, and one of only three German clubs to have won the Champions League or European Cup, along with Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. Hamburg average over 50,000 fans at their home games and boast a membership of almost 90,000, which is the seventh most amongst German clubs and about the same number as Real Madrid.
Schalke, meanwhile, can go one better than Hamburg as seven-time German champions, five-time DFB-Pokal winners, and they themselves won a major European trophy in 1997, the UEFA Cup, following victory in the final against Inter Milan. Schalke's stadium, currently known as the Veltins-Arena, is also one of European football's most outstanding venues. Schalke average sellout crowds of over 60,000 at their home games, and with a massive 160,000 paid-up members, they have the second most in Germany, behind only Bayern Munich, and the fifth most in all of world football, ahead of Manchester United and Barcelona.
The atmosphere inside the Veltins-Arena was electric, and supporters were rewarded with a spectacle to match. It was a game that had almost everything: eight goals, one red card, a comeback victory, a winning goal in injury time, and even a debut goal by a 17-year-old wonderkid. The only thing that it lacked, in truth, was any effort by either side to actually defend. This was, without a doubt, one of the all-time great opening games of a Bundesliga season. Except this wasn't the Bundesliga at all; it was the 2. Bundesliga, the second tier of German football, where Hamburg have spent the last five seasons, having never previously been relegated from the Bundesliga, and where Schalke find themselves yet again this season, having suffered a 2. Bundesliga relegation in only three seasons last term.
Hamburg and Schalke are far from being German football's only fallen giants. Nuremberg, Kaiserslautern, Carl Zeiss Jena, Hertha Berlin, and Fortuna Düsseldorf have won a further 31 trophies between them. Werder Bremen, Stuttgart, Cologne, and Freiburg are all back in the Bundesliga now but have been relegated in recent years. Meanwhile, Dynamo Dresden, 1860 Munich, and Rot-Weiss Essen have suffered from an even worse fate and will compete in the 3. Liga this season. There are more former German champions—nine—in the 2. Bundesliga this season than there are (eight) in the Bundesliga itself, including three of Germany's six most successful clubs of all time and four who have won major European trophies. It is frankly remarkable. It would be the equivalent, in English football, in terms of success and support, of Arsenal, Manchester City, Tottenham, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, and West Ham all competing in the Championship, with Chelsea, Aston Villa, and Wolves all having been relegated in recent years, West Brom, Leicester City, and Sheffield United all dropping down into League One, and Sunderland falling into the non-league game.
The UK's joint bid to host Euro 2028, along with Ireland, doesn't feature any non-top-flight stadiums, though admittedly Everton are doing their best to put that right. At Euro 2024, by contrast, four out of the 10 stadiums are occupied by 2. Bundesliga teams, and one of the other six belongs to Stuttgart, who found themselves in the relegation playoffs last season. It is a striking trend, and one which is only accelerating. So why exactly did Germany's biggest football clubs just keep getting relegated? Well, sit back, relax, and join me on a journey to the land of Frankfurter Würstchen and the four-time world champions as we take a look at Germany's fallen giants, the joyous chaos of the 2. Bundesliga, and what it all means for the German game.
Every Bundesliga fallen giant has some quirks to their tales of misfortune. Kaiserslautern, who suffered one of the most spectacular demises, found themselves mired in scandal and a deep financial crisis within three years of winning a shock Bundesliga title, just eight years after the crowning moment in the history of the club, not unlike Leicester City. Kaiserslautern were relegated following their famous title win. Kaiserslautern's spending sharply increased, and when they failed to qualify for Europe in 2001, all hell broke loose. The club's management team were ousted, and the new president was forced to sell the Fritz-Walter-Stadion to avoid Kaiserslautern being declared bankrupt. They survived a three-point deduction for their financial misdeeds in 2004, but two years later, Kaiserslautern dropped out of the top flight. The pain wouldn't stop there. A return to the Bundesliga in 2010 only lasted two seasons before Kaiserslautern were relegated again, and in 2018, yet another relegation saw the club drop down into the 3. Liga for the very first time. It took Kaiserslautern four years to get out of the third tier of German football, where they still average attendances of an excess of 16,000, and they are not among the favorites to win promotion back to the Bundesliga this season.
Nuremberg, who have won the second most German championships—one ahead of Borussia Dortmund and trailing only Bayern Munich—also dropped down into the 3. Liga after imploding during the mid-1990s. Nuremberg's problems were also financial and ultimately led to their treasurer, Ingo Burble, receiving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for fraud, tax evasion, and misallocating club finances. Just two years after dropping out of the Bundesliga, Nuremberg would dock six points owing to their financial irregularities in the 2. Bundesliga and be relegated once again. Following more than a decade of tumult, Kaiserslautern finished sixth in the Bundesliga, won the DFB-Pokal, and qualified for the UEFA Cup in 2006, but just 12 months later, atrocious transfer business and a bizarre managerial merry-go-round saw them relegated again. Nuremberg have now spent nine out of the last 10 seasons in the 2. Bundesliga, including the current campaign, having been relegated in their only season back in the top flight in 2018-19.
1860 Munich, who were founding members of the Bundesliga back in 1963, unlike their Munich rivals Bayern, and won the league in 1966, can go one worse than either Kaiserslautern or Nuremberg. Though, at the turn of the millennium, superstars like Thomas Hitzlsperger, Davor Šuker, and Delio Rossi donned the famous blue and white of 1860, and they played Leeds United in a Champions League qualifier in August of 2000. Unfortunately, 1860's fate was to mirror Leeds' in many respects over the coming years. During the 2003-04 season, 1860's president, Karl-Heinz Wildmoser, was arrested on suspicion of taking bribes from the Austrian construction firm that built the Allianz Arena, just a year after he had been fined €27,000 for tax evasion relating to hidden salary payments made to 1860 players. 1860 were rocked by that news unsurprisingly, but the fans themselves were even more concerned at the prospect of ground-sharing with their hated rivals Bayern. 1860 went on to be relegated that season, just three years after competing in the Champions League, and Wildmoser left the club in a dire financial state. 1860 Munich have almost been declared insolvent multiple times in the 20 years since, and in 2017, they were relegated to the Regionalliga Bayern, the fourth tier of German football. 1860's investor, Hasan Ismaik, subsequently refused to pay the necessary fees for 1860 to enter the 3. Liga, so they instead suffered a double relegation, dropping into the Regionalliga, the not entirely professional fourth tier of German football. As their neighbors have enjoyed an unprecedented era of dominance at the top table of German football, as well as winning two Champions Leagues, 1860 have watched on from the depths of the German game. They clawed their way back to the 3. Liga in 2018, but they have been stuck there ever since.
The real giants, Schalke and Hamburg, suffered less emphatic but no less shocking declines. Schalke, who are by any metric one of the biggest clubs in German football, went from Bundesliga runners-up in 2018 to 14th in 2019 and relegation in 2021. Immediate promotion from the 2. Bundesliga in 2022 was supposed to herald the dawning of a new era, but a shocking defensive record meant that the club's return to the top flight would be short-lived. Hamburg's relegation in 2018 was particularly painful, though it had been a long time coming. Until that point, Hamburg had never been relegated in the entire 130-year history of the club, and they were the only team to have competed in every single Bundesliga season since 1963. Nonetheless, they had only survived by the skin of their teeth in the past four seasons, twice requiring victories in the relegation playoffs before falling to 18th—an automatic relegation—in 2018. A club of Hamburg's size isn't supposed to stick around for long playing secondary football, but this is now the club's sixth successive season attempting to get back where they feel that they belong.
In a fairly recent video that I made about why Italian football stadiums are so bad, I drew a contrast between Italy's disastrous mishandling of renovating and building new stadiums when they hosted the World Cup in 1990 and the state-of-the-art venues that Germany cultivated or newly built when they hosted the tournament in 2006. That is all undeniably true, and Germany still has more UEFA Category 4 stadiums than any other country in Europe, but it came at a significant cost. The Allianz Arena has been a godsend for Bayern Munich, but the outrage from 1860 fans at the arrangement set the tone for the two decades that were to come. The early 75,000-seat Olympiastadion in Berlin, which was newly renovated for the World Cup and hosted the final, is a stunning venue which absolutely rocks when it's full. Unfortunately, Hertha, who were, until recently, the highest-ranked team from the German capital but have not historically been particularly successful, struggle to fill it or create a raucous atmosphere outside of the biggest of matches. For years now, Hertha have been looking to build a new, purpose-built stadium of their own in the Olympiapark with a capacity of 55,000.
The most damaging renovation project long-term of all, though, was at Kaiserslautern. The Fritz-Walter-Stadion required upgrades which came in at a cost of €76.5 million, saddling the club with a financial burden from which they have never truly recovered. But, the set is a thing of beauty. Bringing it up to standard for a month-long football tournament came at a significant cost to Kaiserslautern, both on and off the pitch. Stuttgart's home ground required renovations totaling in excess of €60 million. Hamburg's Volksparkstadion was entirely rebuilt at a cost of roughly €100 million. Cologne's RheinEnergieStadion came in at almost €20 million. The newly built HDI-Arena in Hanover, over €80 million, and the Max-Morlock-Stadion in Nuremberg, a touch over €55 million. It's important to note that not all of the clubs involved picked up the entire tabs for the build or renovation costs; in some cases, they only provided a portion or none at all. But even in some of those instances, it led to significant rent hikes from the local authorities who own the ground and were looking to recoup some of the money that they had spent.
More significant still, however, in terms of the downfall of some of Germany's biggest clubs, has just been the rise of previously obscure or non-existent teams. At first, there was Bayer Leverkusen, powered by and indeed named after one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. Then came Wolfsburg, with the financial backing of Volkswagen. More recently, Hoffenheim, the village club financed by billionaire Dietmar Hopp, and most notably of all, RB Leipzig, owned and operated by the Red Bull energy drink giants, who have taken the league by storm in recent years. That alone is for new or newish clubs constituting more than 1/5th of the 18 teams who compete in the Bundesliga each season, who finished third, sixth, eighth, and twelfth in the league last season, and none of whom have been relegated since first reaching the Bundesliga. It goes without saying that when four new teams enter the Bundesliga and the league isn't expanded, four must part, and if those four are to stick around as they have, no one can take their place. That is enormously significant. So too has the less artificial rise of just extremely well-run smaller clubs like Heidenheim, Darmstadt, and, most impressively of all, Union Berlin, who finished fourth in the Bundesliga and qualified for the Champions League last season. Those three are perhaps the most notable since they are currently competing in the Bundesliga, but Germany's lower league teams across the board have also become much more professional in recent years.
Then VfB Oldenburg, from the city of Oldenburg, which is best known internationally as the location of the US Army in Europe's headquarters, play at the modest Bremer Brücke, a stadium which looks like it was built out of Lego and cost just €4 million to build in 2007. Then were promoted via the 3. Liga promotion playoffs last season, earning themselves a third stab at life in the 2. Bundesliga, where they have drawn against Magdeburg and won against Hertha and Karlsruhe in their opening three games of the season. VfB is just one example. Paderborn have won two promotions to the Bundesliga in the last 10 years. Holstein Kiel have been extremely competitive since winning promotion to the 2. Bundesliga six years ago, and Osnabrück, currently managed by Bastian Schweinsteiger's brother Tobias, returned to the 2. Bundesliga last season and have spent more seasons in the 2. Bundesliga without winning promotion to the Bundesliga than any other club. There are few easy games in either the 2. Bundesliga or the 3. Liga, and an admirable lack of respect for fallen giants when they drop down there.
You might have imagined that the success of Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig might have made the supporters of Germany's fallen giants seek to go down a similar route and become, let's say, BMW Schalke, Airbus Hamburg, or Fortuna Siemens Düsseldorf. But the opposite is actually true. German football is rooted in tradition far more so than any other major nation in Europe. It can be hard for English football fans to understand or even contemplate, having become so accustomed to being almost entirely dependent upon their wealthy benefactors. But the vast majority of Germans don't envy the Premier League or the model of English football in the slightest. To Germans, the idea of selling centuries-old institutions with such cultural and emotional significance to individual billionaires, wealthy corporations, or tyrannical states thousands of miles away is antithetical to their entire concept of what a football club is and what it means. Most Germans don't look at Manchester City or Liverpool with any sense of envy. Unlike a lot of other European countries who have just been less successful than the Premier League in corporatizing their leagues, might it sound cliché, but there is more to football than winning trophies, and being owned by a Middle Eastern state or a US conglomerate isn't even a trade-off in the eyes of most; it would be a death of the thing that once was, and anything from that point onwards would either be hollow or meaningless.
Dietmar Hopp grew up in Hoffenheim and actually played for the club in his teens. He has more attachment to Hoffenheim than the owner of just about any Premier League team has to their club. He began investing in Hoffenheim in 1990 when the club was competing and struggling, it should be said, in the eighth tier of German football. Hopp's investment transformed Hoffenheim from non-league stragglers into a force to be reckoned with, and in the 2007-08 season, which was their only season in the 2. Bundesliga, they spent more money than every other team in the league combined. During their debut campaign in the Bundesliga, Hoffenheim moved into the 30,000-seat Rhein-Neckar-Arena, built at an estimated cost of €100 million, personally paid for by Hopp. All told, the billionaire software engineer is reported to have invested over a third of a billion euros into Hoffenheim. Hoffenheim have now been a mainstay in the Bundesliga for the last 15 years, twice qualifying for the Champions League and finishing as high as third, above Borussia Dortmund, in the 2017-18 season. The hatred of Hoffenheim and Hopp, therefore, stems not from the hatred of dispassionate outsiders or the most objectionable people imaginable who have bought English football over the last three decades, but primarily from a love of tradition and the essence of German football that Hoffenheim have disregarded. Hoffenheim was an amateur club based in a small village which, crucially, had almost no fans when Hopp first invested in them. Even in the 3. Liga, after five promotions and just three years before reaching the Bundesliga, Hoffenheim still averaged fewer than 2,000 fans at their home games. Hoffenheim isn't a real club, as far as many Germans are concerned; it is Dietmar Hopp's pet project, a club that represents one man, not a community or an organic fan base, and an affront to the supporter-engagement model at almost every other club.
Until 1998, German football officially prohibited any private investment in football clubs whatsoever. Since 1998, the 50+1 rule has been the compromise: private investors, whether that be companies or individuals, can invest in clubs, but members—so supporters who pay a typically modest annual membership fee—must retain at least 50% of the club's voting rights plus one share, preventing majority takeovers by external entities and ensuring that members always control a majority of voting rights. The 50+1 rule is credited with curbing the worst excesses of commercialization and ensuring that, in German football, unlike throughout a lot of the continent, football fans still have a powerful voice. Both season and match-day tickets across the board, but particularly at the top clubs, are much cheaper in the Bundesliga than they are in any of Europe's other major leagues. Season tickets at Bayern Munich start at €60, or just €9.40 a game, and even the most expensive—cheapest—season ticket in the league at Borussia Dortmund starts at €240, or roughly speaking €14 a game. Season tickets at Arsenal and Tottenham, by comparison, start at £874 and £974, so between £45 to £54 a game, and Fulham offer a non-corporate season ticket that will set you back £3,000, or roughly £167 a game. Still, at least you'll get to see lots of goals this season, just, you know, perhaps not many of them for the home team. Even the cheapest season ticket in the Premier League, which can be found at West Ham United, costs £310—over twice as much as the cheapest offering at Bayern Munich, who some would even argue have a stronger squad and a more illustrious past than the Hammers. Most German clubs have substantial standing sections for fans who would rather remain on their feet during a game. The atmospheres are quite frankly incomparable to all but a handful of matches in the English game, and unlike here in England, German fans are entrusted to drink beer on the terraces and in their seats. I know it is hard to believe. These are all things, understandably, one might suggest which are valued by German fans even more so than success. What use would it be watching your team win the Bundesliga title alone because your friend could no longer afford to go to games?
Success has become the be-all and end-all in English football, where not all but many fans will excuse just about anyone or anything in the name of winning matches. But Germans refuse to make the same sacrifices or deals with their devil. In an era of supreme Premier League dominance within European football, the Bundesliga has emerged as the perfect antidote. Whereas other leagues wish and seek to emulate the Premier League but are just far less effective at marketing and attracting capital, certainly most Bundesliga fans want nothing to do with the whole model. The term "Englische Woche"—literally "English week"—is used disparagingly to describe weeks in which clubs play matches during the week rather than on a Saturday afternoon, as is standard throughout the Premier League season. Fewer than half of Premier League games now kick off at 3:00 p.m. on a Saturday; the rest, from Friday through to Monday evening, kick off whenever the broadcasters want them to, with practically zero regard for match-going fans. These are things that the average English football fan doesn't even think about anymore. For good or bad, it is just the norm. But in Germany, where match-going fans still hold large sway and care deeply about tradition, the same thing, on a much more minor scale, has been met with fierce opposition.
In the mid-1980s, Bayer Uerdingen were mainstays in the Bundesliga, finishing as high as third, winning the DFB-Pokal, and reaching the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners' Cup. Uerdingen, as their name at the time illustrated, were funded by the pharmaceutical giants Bayer. In 1995, however, Bayer withdrew their financial support for the club, focusing all of their footballing attention on Bayer Leverkusen, who had just qualified for European football that season. Instead, Uerdingen were relegated. The following season, again in 1999, again in 2005, and 2008, dropping down into the amateur sixth tier of German football, just 12 years after they had been in the Bundesliga. For clubs' reliance on individual benefactors—of which there are a handful in Germany and an abundance almost everywhere else—that risk will always exist. Hoffenheim and Leipzig are, despite them, as threats to the traditions that German football fans hold so dear, and opposition to the misuse only strengthens support for tradition rather than tempting fans to disregard 50+1 or supporter engagement in favor of private ownership.
One of the problems with the 50+1 model, however, particularly since the 1998 reforms allowing regulated private investments, is the supremacy of Bayern Munich. Bayern have more members than any other club in world football—at almost twice as many as any other team in the Bundesliga—at over 300,000. That generates the club roughly €20 million annually alone, but much more significant still are their three largest commercial partners: Adidas, Audi, and Allianz, who each own 8.33% of the club. The remaining 75% is owned by Bayern's more than 300,000 members, and Bayern's commercial revenue at €337.8 million is the highest in all of world football. The next highest in the Bundesliga, at Borussia Dortmund, isn't even worth half that amount. In fact, Bayern's commercial revenue alone is larger than Dortmund's overall revenue, including match-day and broadcast revenue as well. It is no surprise, therefore, that Bayern have won the last 11 Bundesliga titles in a row, albeit Dortmund did very nearly—and should actually have won—it last season. Between 1963 and 1998, a period of 35 years, Bayern were still the most successful team in Germany, winning 14 out of a possible 35 Bundesliga titles. Between the 1998 reforms and 2012-13, though, a period of 25 years, Bayern have won 19 out of a possible 25 Bundesliga titles. That is an increase from 40% to over 75%, and over the past decade, of course, it has been 100%.
Bayern's dominance is undoubtedly a problem for the Bundesliga, not just in terms of excitement but for the fallen giants we are primarily concerned with, like Hamburg, Schalke, and Stuttgart. It means that the Bundesliga title is no longer a realistic prospect. Clubs that could once compete for the very biggest prizes, both domestically and internationally, can no longer do so, forcing them to lower their expectations, giving them an in-built financial disadvantage and kickstarting, one could argue, the domino effect of massive clubs falling from grace that we have seen over the recent years and decades. The commitment of German clubs to tradition and fan engagement might be admirable—I think most people would agree—but they cannot afford to become stale or sentimental in terms of their recruitment, coaching, or player development. Hoffenheim and Leipzig, for all of their faults, are among the most innovative clubs in the Bundesliga and routinely do some of the best transfer business. Hopp might have spent wild sums to get Hoffenheim into the Bundesliga, but since they got there, they have been only shrewd. Over the past decade, they have a net spend of €171 million of profit—the most of any team in the division. Leipzig, meanwhile, have generated almost €100 million in player trades and over half a billion euros in transfer revenue over the last three seasons alone, both of which are Bundesliga records as well. While some of Germany's biggest clubs have grown stale in recent years in terms of their thinking and methods, embracing tradition and innovative recruitment and player development elements are not mutually exclusive.
Union Berlin are perhaps the most fan-led and fan-engaged club in the Bundesliga. During times of extreme hardship during the late 2000s, Union fans literally renovated the club stadium with their own hands as volunteers, along with a campaign to raise funds by donating blood, meaning that Union fans quite literally bleed for their club. In recent years, despite operating on a comparative shoestring budget, Union have enjoyed a remarkable rise, promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time in the history of the club in 2019. They finished fourth last season, qualifying for the Champions League. Union are the shining light of how you can have your cake and eat it and serve as an example to every club looking to reach and compete in the Bundesliga. For all of the external factors that I've talked about extensively, which have impacted Germany's fallen giants, their own incompetence and recklessness ought not be overlooked. In many instances, they have struggled to strike a balance between ambition and reason. For those who overspent, it typically only took one bad season for disaster to strike and a calamitous downfall to ensue. For those who exercised restraint, in many instances, their demise was more gradual, like a…
Tire with a slow puncture, but they ended up in the exact same place. A number of them have also taken their eye off the ball when it comes to theirm. Shalka's Academy is rightly lorded as one of the finest in World football. The likes of Mamel Noya, Mezil, Benedict Herz, IL Gundan, Max Meyer, Julian Draxler, and Leroy Sané all came through the Knappenschmied Academy. But in recent years, the club's production line has dried up.
They are not alone. Outside of midfielders, German youth development, the most reliable in World football for so long, appears to have malfunctioned. And the DFB recently instituted a raft of reforms in light of Germany's successive group stage exits from the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. It's not just that German clubs are developing fewer star players now; it's also that, on the rare occasions in which they still do, they are losing them for little to nothing. Whereas Shalke sold the likes of Sané, Draxler, and Neya for an absolute fortune back in the day, more recently they have lost the likes of Malik Tillman and Max Meyer for phenomenal fees—or nothing.
That is partly due to incompetence and poor planning, but it's also the fact that, even in Germany, young players, often encouraged by their agents, are becoming much more willing to run down their contracts and either reduce or entirely eliminate their potential transfer fees. For the likes of Schalke, Stuttgart, 1860, and Hamburg, they were once major assets and cash cows for them, even if they would have rather kept hold of their best players. And that revenue stream being blunted ought not be underestimated. Nor should the broader issue alluded to; they are far from exclusive to the Bundesliga. Every Premier League team now having far more spending power than them and being able to poach pretty much anyone outside of Bayern and Dortmund players at will. The realignment of German football has had some interesting consequences.
It is no exaggeration to say that the second Bundesliga is now one of the biggest leagues in World football. The average attendance across Hamburg's first three games of the season—at home to Schalke, away at KS Reutlingen, and at home to Hertha Berlin—has been just shy of 50,000. Seven out of the league's 18 clubs average over 30,000 fans at their home games, and 11 average over 25,000, with Schalke leading the way at more than 60,000, Hamburg at 57,000, and both Kaiserslautern and Hertha in excess of 40,000. The league's average attendance as a whole, at over 27,000, is the fifth highest in World football, ahead of Ligue 1 and the Championship, and only very narrowly behind La Liga and Serie A.
The second Bundesliga is home to some of Germany's biggest clubs, fiercest rivals, and most unpredictable scorelines. In a league of contrasts between fallen giants and overachieving minnows, entertainment is very rarely in short supply. Some German football fans have even started calling it the best league in the world. The second Bundesliga is actually so popular now, for all of those reasons, that there are concerns that it is starting to detract from the Bundesliga itself, as more and more eyeballs focus on Germany's second tier instead. That should come as no surprise. The second Bundesliga has incredible atmospheres, fan culture, and teams steeped in tradition. It might not have the world's best players, but it has everything that makes German football so magical.
That is it for today's video, but thank you all very much, as ever, for watching. Hit the like button if you enjoyed it, let me know your thoughts down below in the comments, and of course, make sure that you are subscribed and have notifications turned on, both for this channel, Hit Tz7s, and my second channel, Alfie Poots Armour, both of which should be on your screens now. You can also find me on Twitter or Instagram via the username @hc7 on both, should you wish to do so.