The latest conventional wisdom is that the German football model represented by the Bundesliga has established itself as a better one than that of the Premiership.
The first piece of evidence cited for this view is the all-German final in the Champions League and the relatively poor performance of Premiership clubs in the competition. Methodologically, this is not a sound argument. It’s what is called an individualistic fallacy, generalising from an individual case.
The latest conventional wisdom is that the German football model represented by the Bundesliga has established itself as a better one than that of the Premiership.
The first piece of evidence cited for this view is the all-German final in the Champions League and the relatively poor performance of Premiership clubs in the competition. Methodologically, this is not a sound argument. It’s what is called an individualistic fallacy, generalising from an individual case.
This year Manchester City were still on a learning curve, while Chelsea were facing a number of challenges. Arsenal were Arsenal and Manchester United were arguably unlucky, but remain a very strong European side.
More generally, the supporters’ movement has, understandably enough, championed the German model because of its provisions for supporter involvement, safe standing and cheap tickets with free public transport to the match.
Of course, German clubs are not always squeaky clean as the current involvement of the president of Bayern Munich in a tax evasion scandal suggests, an episode that has embarassed German chancellor and football fan Angela Merkel.
However, there are signs of an increasing challenge to the notion that the Germans have got it right and their model should be copied in the rest of Europe. They did, of course, provide the basis for Uefa’s financial fair play rules, now facing a legal challenge. Football economics guru Stefan Szymanski has struck a sceptical note in his blog.
In The Times yesterday, Gabriel Marcotti also struck a sceptical note about the ‘”German blueprint”, whatever it may be. He argued that the German model is far from foolproof when it comes to youth development.
I’ve written on German political economy for over thirty years. I have lived and worked in the country and even once had a reasonable command of the language. All this taught me three things about the ‘German model’: (i) people misunderstand and misrepresent it; (ii) they think you can take out those bits they like and leave the rest, ignoring the fact that the system works as a whole, (iii) they always overlook the downsides.