12/08/2021 Act. on 10/30/2023 at 17:59 CET
Jaume Roures, founder of Mediapro, has reopened the ‘melon’ of the FC Barcelona ownership model, with the example of the Bavarians on the horizon
Most of the ownership (75%) of the Bavarian club belongs to the members, but Allianz, Audi and Adidas also own a percentage of the shares.
A few years ago we received some chaotic images of the Bayern Munich assembly. “We are Bayern, you are not! We are the fans you don’t want!” the members shouted, dissatisfied. It all came from a sponsorship agreement reached by the entity with Qatar Airways until 2023. The club’s president, Herbert Hainer (former CEO of Adidas), and Oliver Kahn, general director and living legend of Bayern, the target of criticism.
What at first glance may seem like a ‘cacicada’ is nothing more than an example of democratic health that is practically non-existent in today’s football. In fact, hours after those scenes, both Kahn and Hainer came out to apologize and assured that the agreement would be reconsidered between the partners.
And it is that The German club is one of the few TOP clubs in the old continent that is still under the control of the members. We are going to try to explain in a more or less understandable way how the ownership of Bayern Munich is structured. The tip of the iceberg is a tremendous squad and sporting performance that borders on excellence, but behind it there is an entire institutional hieroglyph. To do the analysis, the journalist specialized in international football in general and ‘sick’ of Bayern in particular, Marc Mayola, gives us a hand.
ALL PART OF THE 50+1 LAW
Everything is born from the famous 50+1 rule in Germany. To prevent the clubs from falling into the hands of billionaires, tycoons, sheikhs and company, it is required that 50% of the ownership plus one share belong to the members. The law is made and the trap is made and some cases such as Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen, RB Leipzig or Hoffenheim have haggled that rule in their own way. But not Bayern, which is the case that concerns us and which has tried to take it further to shield the club from ‘external threats’.
Neuer and Ter Stegen, in an image of the Champions League first round match
| Javi Ferrándiz
A COMPANY THAT MANAGES PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL
In the Bavarian entity, The company in charge of managing professional football is the so-called FC Bayern München AG, 75% of which belongs to the Club, which is known as eV (registered sports club). What would become the partners, the fans. The remaining 25% is shared by Audi, Allianz and Adidas, with 8.33% each. This shared ownership model began in 2001, when the aforementioned 50+1 law was established in Germany. Adidas was the first to enter in 2002. It paid 77 million euros to acquire 10% of the shares. In 2010/11 Audi joined, paying 90 ‘kilos’ for the same percentage (obviously, the value of the shares increases over time). The last to do so is Allianz, which paid 110 million euros in 2014. From that moment on, 25% is distributed equally. In total, over 12 years Bayern receives around 277 million with the gradual entry of the three partners.
Within the AG, the company that manages professional football and of which the partner has 75% (we are repeating because the matter is cumbersome), there are two organizations:
The Directiva (‘Board of Directors’), which has Oliver Kahn as CEO, Dreesen as director of finance, Jung as head of sponsorships and merchandising and Salihamidizc as head of sports. They are in charge of all sports management, recruiting sponsors, etc. They make the decisions. He supervisory board (9 members), formed by the president of the club, Herbert Hainer, former CEO of Adidas, by an official from Adidas, one from Audi, one from Allianz, one from Unicredit Bank, another from Telekom. Then there is Uli Hoeness, as honorary president of Bayern and who is part of the supervisory board; a vice president of the club, Dieter Mayer, who is part of the supervisory board of the AG, and the former minister-president of Bavaria, Dr. Edmund Stoiber. What this body does is control economic operations (that is what representatives of companies with shares in the company or with weight in the club are there for, including Telekom and Unicredit, sponsors without shares). For example, they gave OK in 2019 to the decision to pay Lucas Hernández’s clause.
One aspect to keep in mind is that Bayern must always close the year in profit. In fact, in these last two years of the pandemic, when all clubs have presented million-dollar losses, the Bavarian entity has obtained 11 million in profit.
WOULD IT BE THE SOLUTION TO BARÇA’S SERIOUS ECONOMIC CRISIS?
The question is whether Bayern’s complex structural framework, which is giving excellent results at both a management and sporting level, could be applied to FC Barcelona in the medium-term future. The economic crisis that the Barça club is going through, that difficulty in signing, the credit requested from Goldman Sachs and the accumulated debt that has not stopped growing. A state of alarm that puts the model in check.
For a start, For a model like that of the German club to work, there must be powerful brands that guarantee loyalty and investment. In the case of Bayern, Adidas, Allianz and Audi are companies based in Bavaria/Munich and with a tradition of cooperation with the club. In Barça, three strong brands from Barcelona or nearby should make a long-term bet. It’s hard to think of names of that caliber. Of course foreigners could enter, yes, but proximity seems key. Furthermore, at Barça the social mass is probably not prepared to accept such a radical change. That private entities enter the property. The member believes he is the owner of the club, votes every ‘X’ years, the members’ assembly, etc. A series of sacred traditions.
The general perception is that he is not prepared. Barça would have to make a valuation of the shares in case of making the conversion, would require a change in the corporate, legal and statute model, determining what part of Barça in this new society created the club sells and making numbers. Important gibberish. The club has 1.2 billion in debt plus a loan from Goldman Sachs for the new Spotify Camp Nou. It would help the injection to breathe a little (in the case of Bayern less than 300 ‘kilos’ entered, so it would not be the solution).
2023-10-30 16:59:00
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