Bayern Munich president Herbert Hainer and chief executive officer Jan-Christian Dreesen both took swings at the 50+1 Rule in recent weeks.
“The 50+1 rule should be abolished. Every club should be able to decide for itself what it wants to do,” Hainer told Tz (as captured by @iMiaSanMia).
Dreesen backed up Hainer.
“Herbert Hainer has reiterated our stance recently. We’re of the opinion that every club should be able to decide for itself what to do. We need a strong and competitive Bundesliga to stay
motivated and push ourselves. I hope our colleagues in Dortmund, Leverkusen, Stuttgart, Leipzig and everywhere can also take steps and keep up with us,” Dreesen said during an appearance on Bild Live (as captured by @iMiaSanMia).
Clearly, Bayern Munich is positioning itself to take a formal stand against the rule at some point or at least push for some type of change.
What is the 50+1 Rule and why is it important?
The 50+1 rule is a regulation that ensures club members (not outside investors) retain majority control of their clubs. The parent club (the registered members’ association) must hold at least 50% plus one voting share of the professional football entity. That “+1” guarantees majority decision-making power. In Germany, the rule applies to clubs in the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga.
The 50+1 rule was introduced to:
- Prevent full takeovers by private investors
- Protect clubs from reckless financial speculation
- Preserve fan influence and club traditions
- Maintain competitive integrity
As you might have ascertained, German football culture emphasizes that clubs belong to their members and supporters, not billionaires or corporations like you might find in England, France, or Italy.
Obviously, this kind of model was implemented in much simpler financial times and the system (or a reasonable facsimile) is only used in Germany, Austria, Norway, and Sweden. Will it change? Maybe, but fans might not let it happen easily.
The Bundesliga broke it down with examples here. An excerpt is below:
The bottom line is that the parent club – i.e. the members’ association – retains majority control in some way.
Using the concrete example of Bayern Munich, the shareholders of the men’s first team (FC Bayern München AG) are the members’ club (FC Bayern München e.V. – 75%), Adidas (8.3%), Allianz (8.3%) and Audi (8.3%).
Things are organised differently at Dortmund. The members’ club (consisting of 168,163 members as of November 2022) actually only controls 4.61% of Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA, which oversees the men’s first team, reserves and U19s. Signal Iduna hold 5.98% of shares, Bernd Geske 8.24%, Evonik Industries 8.19% and the remaining 72.27% is floated on the stock market. However, the management company in charge of running the football club, Borussia Dortmund Geschäftsführungs-GmbH, is 100% owned by the members’ club, ensuring control of matters and thus compliance with 50+1.
There are exemptions, though:
Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg are two special cases in the Bundesliga, based on the fact that investors who have had an interest in a club for more than 20 years can be granted an exemption from the 50+1 rule.
Leverkusen was founded in 1904 by employees of German pharmaceutical company Bayer, which was based in the city. Affiliated with the local autoworks, meanwhile, VfL Wolfsburg was founded in 1945, just seven years after the city itself was created to house Volkswagen workers busy assembling the famous Beetle or “people’s car”. Those two clubs have always been owned by the respective companies, long before their arrivals in the Bundesliga, and are therefore exempt – not that all fan groups agree with that rule.
You might be wondering about RB Leipzig, but they have circumvented the rule by having a small membership group, who all have ties to Red Bull.
If you are looking for more Bayern Munich and German national team coverage, check out the latest episodes of Bavarian Podcast Works, which you can get on Acast, Spotify, Apple, or any leading podcast distributor…
Join the conversation!
Sign up for a user account and get:
- New, improved notifications system!
- Fewer ads
- Create community posts
- Comment on articles, community posts
- Rec comments, community posts
