Bayern In Crisis With Bundesliga - 13/04/03

Bayern Munich were fourteen points clear at the top of the Bundesliga in mid-April 2003, but their whole future in the competition is in doubt. They face the prospect of sanctions over a secret marketing deal which gave them a top-up of €21.5 million from the troubled KirchMedia group which ended when it went into administration with huge losses last year. The League has to decide whether the payments violate the key principle of central marketing which ensures that all professional clubs benefit from a share of television rights. Big clubs like Bayern have been pushing for separate marketing for years, but collective marketing is vitally important to smaller clubs.

The Bundesliga has made it clear that if Bayern are found to have broken the rules, they will have to be punished. But can the league confront the country's equivalent of Manchester United? Bayern have threatened that if they are given a points deduction, they will pull out of German football. But where they would go? They have suggested that they might join the Italian League, but it is difficult to see that that would be allowed or would even suit Bayern and its supporters. Some kind of compromise will surely bve found, but it demonstrates the increasing ability of super clubs either to mould the rules or break them if they don't suit them.