By Tony Attwood
While the media in Britain has occasionally hinted that maybe all is not well, most of the time they seem to be enjoying the hyper-inflation of transfer fees that is going on.
But the public in Germany are now being told that Bayern Munich will not participate in the current “madness” of the transfers, whose prices are exploding, even if it means renouncing the chance of winning the Champions League in the near future, at least according to its president Uli Hoeness.
“I do not want to buy a player for 150 or 200 million euros, I do not want to participate in such madness, these are things we totally refuse to be engaged in at Bayern.”
Of course when someone makes such grandiose claims it is worth comparing what is exactly going on rather than just accepting what is being said. Here are the top deals thus far involving German clubs
| Pos | Player | From | To | Price |
| 1 | Corentin Tolisso | Lyon | Bayern Munich | £36.4m |
| 2 | Hakan Calhanoglu | Bayer Leverkusen | Milan | £22m |
| 3 | Niklas Süle | Hoffenheim | Bayern Munich | £19.3m |
| 4 | Kingsley Coman | Juventus | Bayern Munich | £18.4m |
| 5 | John Brooks | Hertha Berlin | Wolfsburg | £17.6 |
| 6 | Maximilian Philipp | Freiburg | Borussia Dortmund | £17.5 |
| 7 | Nabil Bentaleb | Tottenham Hotspur | Schalke 04 | £16.8m |
| 8 | Javier Hernández | Bayer Leverkusen | West Ham United | £16m |
| 9 | Medhi Benatia | Bayern Munich | Juventus | £14.9m |
| 10 | Matthias Ginter | Borussia Dortmund | Borussia Mönchengladbach | £14.9m |
- Arsenal -£34m
- Chelsea -£59.5m
- Everton +£7m
- Liverpool -£32.5
- Manchester City -£178.9m
- Manchester United -£96.2m
- Tottenham +£75.5m
As a result, the team that is virtually guaranteed to win the German League and have a fair crack at the Champions League each year has said he’s not really going to join in. “As long as such madness takes place in the transfer market, it will not be possible to plan a victory in the Champions League,” he said, “but we want to become German champions.”
Certainly on price Bayern are dominating their own market since three of the top 10 purchases in Germany this summer have been undertaken by Bayern.
Borussia Mönchengladbach’s expenditure at -£61m comes close but no one else in Germany is in that league.
So maybe the point is that Bayern are dominant, and it costs them less to remain dominant. And I suspect the whole statement is merely to deflect attention away from the fact that according to press reports, PSG is currently trying to take Neymar from Barcelona for 220 million euros, while Real Madrid have apparently signed an agreement in principle with Monaco for the French striker Kylian Mbappé for 180 million euros.
But PSG, Barcelona, Real Mad, these are the oddballs, the clubs that can spend anything. In PSG’s case they know that Qatar will pay (as long as the blockade doesn’t shut the country down totally) while the finances and tax affairs of Barcelona and Real Mad are basically from another planet.
For comparison Manchester City’s current expenditure is also around the 220 million euros to recruit Benjamin Mendy, Bernardo Silva, Kyle Walker, Ederson, Danilo and Douglas Luiz. And we have to remember that Bayern could be approaching higher levels. Corentin Tolisso will cost 47.5 million euros if all bonuses apply.
Uli Hoeness also added an interesting appendix warning of a negative reaction from fans if the inflationary trend continues. “I wonder if over the long term we will be able to get the spectators to accept it,” he said.
And that is really the question that came out of Walter’s post earlier today. Tottenham fans who have written in to us in relation to the last article and indeed our review of 10 days ago, not only seem to be accepting the fact of having made a profit in a transfer window when others have spent a fortune, but are very happy with the situation.
As we, and they, have pointed out, over the years this has never been the case with Arsenal where there has been great discontent for quite a while among a noisy troublesome minority.
Of course we still have a long way to go in the transfer window – well five weeks. But at the moment Real Madrid are sitting at £21m profit, Barcelona at £30m loss, Atletico Madrid at £1.4m loss.
But it could still all change.
- Ridiculing one, praising another. How the media treat Arsenal and Tottenham over building a stadium.
- Injury updates, who’s in favour, Alexis is ill, Elneny’s position, last night’s victory
- Alexis wants pay cut to force move; Bale coming to Arsenal; tonight’s team news
- What makes a pitch worth ‘a million dollars’? Arsenal’s deal secures its second stadium.
The Index of Indexes
- The In Index: All the players tipped to be joining Arsenal this summer
- The Out Index: All the players tipped to be leaving Arsenal this summer
- The Purchase Index: All this summer’s player buying by the top 10 clubs of last season
- The Loan Index: The top clubs compared in terms of players loaned out
While the economics of German football and how it has been structured to tip Bayern to perennial domestic success reeks, it must be said for Uli that the amounts bandied by PSG (£198m) and Real Madrid (£160m) for individual players are ridiculous. By staying out of it, I hope other clubs of such financial might do not join in to create such an absurd trend.
I am also not a big fan of net spend as a measure of transfer activity as it ultimately goes to hide said transfer activity. Spurs are a selling club and have been preaching this since the departures of Modric and Bale. And even Everton above look like they haven’t done much business when they actually have brought in a number of decent players.
The Germany Bundesliga clubs doesn’t look to be heavy spenders in doing incoming transfers but light spenders at doing them whenever they do the signings. But has that light spending helped Bayern and Munich Borussia Dortmund, the 2 leading German clubs realise their Champions League win ambitions in recent seasons? This is against the 2 giant Spanish club sides who have been regular winners of it in the past decade after having been heavily investing in top quality players acquisition in the transfer market. The heavy investment transfer acquisition that has seen these 2 giant Spanish Clubs dominated the Champions League wins among themselves with minimal interruption by any other club.
But having said this, I am not in support of the astronomical transfer fees occasioned in this current summer transfer market in which PSG and Real Madrid are the major culprits in the act of making high insane in coming transfer bidding this summer in the transfer market. Man Utd are not left behind when it comes to doing low insane incoming transfers in the past 3 seasons.
Since the FFP is looking not to adequately put the excessive spending by the major clubs in the 4 Europe’s top Leagues which excludes the German top club sides, I will suggest Uefa should introduce a peg in the transfer release clause writing into the contract of players at club to a maximum of £70m for any player of the caliber of: Messi, Louis Suarez, Neymar, Lewandoswki, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema, Higuain, Alexis Sanchez, Harry Kane, Romelu Lukaku, Kun Aguero and Diego Costa. Only then will we see sanity brought to bear in the transfer fees chargeable by clubs for outgoing transfers at their clubs in the transfer market windows.
But whatever be the case, Arsenal should try by all possible means at their disposal to conclude the transfer of Thomas Lemar to Arsenal this summer without encountering any failure to get the transfer done, i know it will cost them money in the region of say, £50m to get the transfer over the line. But let them close their eyes and do this particular transfer this summer. While at the same time, they shouldn’t forget that they also have a top quality holding midfielder transfer to do this summer too. As a second (DM) signing to Coquelin is since long overdue to have at Arsenal imho.
This bubble needs to burst, and right now. If this madness we will see a player selling for £1b soon. That is scary. I’m not an economist but surely these ridiculous amounts must be causing inflation in other areas of the economy as well?
Nice to see that we got one of the best players available for free; Kolasinac. I’ve only watched a combined total of less than half an hour of him in action, but have seen enough to convince me the guy is a good player. He’s skilful (too skilful for a defender in fact), quick and strong. This guy is gonna be great for us. Anyone disagreeing please take screenshots of this post, and let’s have this conversation again in 12 to 18 months’ time. Not sure where Wenger intends to play him though; LB or CB. Looking forward to cheering Arsenal on at the Emirates on Sunday.
If this madness continues..
In the last 10 years they’ve wrangled some very good deals but they’ve also paid top dollar for some players as well.
So what they mean is that the craziness has gone beyond the crazy level they were happy to be involved in… So now they want to moan about it…
Lest we forget, it’s also being reported Bayern have just refused a £44 million offer for Renato Sanchez, a player who’s only been there 12 months and was hotly tipped for stardom, yet has been misused by the club to the point his confidence may have been permanently affected. Perhaps they think it’s only everybody else who is greedy in asking inflated fees for average to good players?