Throughout Bayern Munich’s unrivaled streak of 11 consecutive Bundesliga titles, the running joke was that Bayern won the league in the summer rather than on the pitch. The Rekordmeister has made a habit of spending significantly more than the rest of the league in order to preserve the club’s spot at the top of the Bundesliga food chain.
During the 2024/25 season, Paris-Saint Germain bucked the trend by winning the Champions League after gradually shedding the massive contracts of Lionel Messi, Neymar,
and Kylian Mbappe. Bayern board member Karl-Heinz Rummenigge believes that PSG’s formula is the best strategy for Bayern as well.
“I’m particularly concerned about the current salary trend,” Rummenigge told Kicker (via @iMiaSanMia). “There’s almost only one direction: upwards. Not just at FC Bayern, but in general. I was very gratified by Paris Saint-Germain’s success in the Champions League. PSG consciously abandoned Europe’s most expensive salary structure—Messi, Neymar, and Mbappé are gone—but they still won the UCL title for the first time. It shows that you can still achieve sporting success with smart, sustainable investments.”
While this is technically true, it should also be noted that PSG spent more than at least €40M (each) to bring in their core pieces, including Ousmane Dembélé, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Joao Neves, Nuno Mendes, Achraf Hakimi, Vitinha, Willian Pacho, Désiré Doué, and Bradley Barcola.
It would be nice to only produce academy prospects, but big money is still the primary requirement to field a team that can win league titles and compete for the Champions League title.
