When Bayern Munich splurged the biggest ever outgoing transfer fee in German football history to land Harry Kane last summer, it was taken by many to be the final death knell for competitiveness in the Bundesliga.
Bayern had just set the seal on an 11th straight title. The fact Borussia Dortmund had even pushed them close, only being denied by a late Jamal Musiala goal on the last day of the 2022/23 season, was seen as a notable feat for the rest.
The arrival of England’s captain would surely extinguish even vague scares like that for the all-conquering Bavarians.
Well, Kane’s arrival did coincide with a new level of domination in the Bundesliga. But not of the sort everyone was expecting.
Instead, the side with the fourth largest budget in the league and a stadium that is less than half the size of the country’s leading teams enjoyed an unprecedented season of success.
Bayer Leverkusen swept all before them to win their first league title, going undefeated in the process, and added the German Cup to boot.
Did their annus mirabilis save the Bundesliga, which begins again on Saturday, after years of Bayern monopoly?
“If you have 11 years, the same champion, I can speak myself as a fan,” said Fernando Carro, Leverkusen’s chief executive. “If you know who is going to win the league, why follow games?
“At the end of day, OK, it's going to be interesting, who goes down to the second division and who reaches the Champions League. But the most important one is who is the champion.
“We have tried to contribute to a more successful brand by beating Bayern after 11 years. I think it will be important for all the clubs that are part of the league to try to contribute to this excitement in who is going to be champion.”
Carro’s suggestion that years of Bayern domination made the league less interesting seems logical, yet the data does not wholly support the point. After all, crowds have remained healthier there than anywhere else.
In 2023/24, the Bundesliga was the best attended of Europe’s big five leagues, with an average match attendance of just over 39,500.
The English Premier League, by contrast, saw average crowds of 38,557, while even Bundesliga 2’s typical gate of around 28,000 exceeded that of France’s top division.
Peer Naubert, the chief marketing officer of Bundesliga International, thinks football clubs reflect society in Germany.
“What’s the social glue in Germany at the moment?” Naubert said. “The membership of the church is going down, and you see memberships in the political parties going down.
“The only part Germans still heavily associate themselves with is pretty much sport, and especially football.”
In 'Soccernomics', their book dispelling some of the myths of football, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski point out that sides who monopolise success can make leagues more attractive, rather than less.
“Dominant teams create a special interest of their own,” they write. “In the 1990s, millions of people supported Manchester United and millions of others despised them.
“In a way, both groups were following the club. United were the stars of football’s soap opera. Every other team’s fans dreamt of beating them.” For United in England back then, read Bayern in Germany more recently.
The authors also suggested that football inequality of modern times annoys people “not because it is unprecedented, but because it is more driven by money than it used to be”.
'Soccernomics' was written before the huge inflation in revenues in football over the past decade. The resentment to commercialisation of the game in Germany is most real.
In February, the German Football League abandoned plans to negotiate a billion euro investment deal with a private equity partner because of a fan revolt.
Widespread protests, which included supporters throwing tennis balls and other objects onto pitches, caused delays of up to 30 minutes at matches in the country’s top two divisions.
Even without that funding boost, the Bundesliga is second only to the Premier League in total revenue. But the clubs do not have the same spending might as their rivals across the continent’s top divisions.
For example, only two of the 10 largest transfers in Bundesliga history have seen players arriving.
That is the €95m Kane deal, which was the third biggest transfer fee a German club has been involved with, and Lucas Hernandez, the French left-back who cost Bayern €80m from Atletico Madrid in 2019.
Ousmane Dembele’s move from Dortmund to Barcelona in 2017 was the largest, at €135m, followed by Jude Bellingham’s €103m move from that same club to Real Madrid.
By contrast, in Spain, only two of the 10 biggest transfers clubs have been involved in have seen the player exit the country – Neymar from Barcelona to PSG and Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid to Juventus.
In England, four of the top 10 biggest transfers have been sales – Philipp Coutinho from Liverpool to Barcelona, Eden Hazard and Gareth Bale to Real Madrid from Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur respectively, and Kane to Bayern.
Despite all that, German clubs still excel. There were two of them in the semi-final of the Champions League last season, to one each from Spain and France, while Leverkusen made the final of the Europa League.
More than anyone else, Leverkusen show what can be done with some sound management, a can-do attitude, and - in the form of Xabo Alonso - an outstanding manager.
It costs as little as €45 to be a member of Leverkusen. They won the league despite having a stadium with a smaller capacity (around 30,000) than the average attendance figure for the league. The BayArena is less than half the size of Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund’s stadiums.
Leverkusen went unbeaten throughout the season. But their budget has remained just the same as it was before last season, so repeating their success is going to be a challenge.
“This challenge is difficult because expectations are very high,” said Simon Rolfes, Leverkusen’s managing director of sport.
“Everybody knows in life that in the past, everything was fantastic. We never made a mistake in the game, and all passes were fantastic. Of course, that is not true, even in the last season.
“To start new, to start from zero, to accept that we make mistakes, that is part of the process of developing a team spirit. The thing is not to compare it with the last match day, or the last period of last season.”
Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Abu Dhabi GP schedule
Friday: First practice - 1pm; Second practice - 5pm
Saturday: Final practice - 2pm; Qualifying - 5pm
Sunday: Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (55 laps) - 5.10pm
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Washmen Profile
Date Started: May 2015
Founders: Rami Shaar and Jad Halaoui
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Laundry
Employees: 170
Funding: about $8m
Funders: Addventure, B&Y Partners, Clara Ventures, Cedar Mundi Partners, Henkel Ventures
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
Company%20Profile
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: seven-speed
Power: 620bhp
Torque: 760Nm
Price: Dh898,000
On sale: now
Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
How to become a Boglehead
Bogleheads follow simple investing philosophies to build their wealth and live better lives. Just follow these steps.
• Spend less than you earn and save the rest. You can do this by earning more, or being frugal. Better still, do both.
• Invest early, invest often. It takes time to grow your wealth on the stock market. The sooner you begin, the better.
• Choose the right level of risk. Don't gamble by investing in get-rich-quick schemes or high-risk plays. Don't play it too safe, either, by leaving long-term savings in cash.
• Diversify. Do not keep all your eggs in one basket. Spread your money between different companies, sectors, markets and asset classes such as bonds and property.
• Keep charges low. The biggest drag on investment performance is all the charges you pay to advisers and active fund managers.
• Keep it simple. Complexity is your enemy. You can build a balanced, diversified portfolio with just a handful of ETFs.
• Forget timing the market. Nobody knows where share prices will go next, so don't try to second-guess them.
• Stick with it. Do not sell up in a market crash. Use the opportunity to invest more at the lower price.
The Book of Collateral Damage
Sinan Antoon
(Yale University Press)
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal / Ubisoft Toronto
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, Windows
Release Date: April 10
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Company%20Profile
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Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
2020 Oscars winners: in numbers
- Parasite – 4
- 1917– 3
- Ford v Ferrari – 2
- Joker – 2
- Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood – 2
- American Factory – 1
- Bombshell – 1
- Hair Love – 1
- Jojo Rabbit – 1
- Judy – 1
- Little Women – 1
- Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl) – 1
- Marriage Story – 1
- Rocketman – 1
- The Neighbors' Window – 1
- Toy Story 4 – 1
