The big picture in this series cannot be complete without each part of it explored. This is why I encourage people to check out previous posts before getting to this one.

[Part 1: Introduction](https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@amirtheawesome1/how-bayern-munich-destroyed-german-football-introduction)
[Part 2: The Ugly Side Of Financial Fair Play](https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@amirtheawesome1/how-bayern-munich-destroyed-german-football-the-ugly-side-of-financial-fair-play)
[Part 3: Before The Berlin Wall Fell](https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@amirtheawesome1/how-bayern-munich-destroyed-german-football-before-the-berlin-wall-fell)
[part 4: Before The Berlin Wall Fell Part 2](https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@amirtheawesome1/how-bayern-munich-destroyed-german-football-before-the-berlin-wall-fell-part-2)
[Part 5: After The Berlin Wall Fell](https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@amirtheawesome1/how-bayern-munich-destroyed-german-football-after-the-berlin-wall-fell)
[Part 6: The Kirch Group Deal ](https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@amirtheawesome1/how-bayern-munich-destroyed-german-football-the-kirch-group-deal)
[Part 7: All The Bullying](https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@amirtheawesome1/how-bayern-munich-destroyed-german-football-all-the-bullying)

<img src="https://i.ibb.co/PgyNYVz/Mulan.png" alt="Mulan" border="0"></a>

Many of the people defending/praising Bayern and its presence in German football always say something that more or fewer falls within the same line of this comment I received on an earlier post of this series

> Bayern worked hard to get there. If BVB kept their players they could dominate the UCL let alone German. Every English club is doing the same. Mancity buying Haaland is fine but if it's Bayern then it's a crime! 

On the surface, this sounds like a genuine response. It is true if Borussia Dortmund had kept the stars the club sold who are still active currently, they'd have a squad that could genuinely compete against Bayern in Germany and all the top clubs in Europe. But, the area where this argument is wrong is that people who make it never actually ask why these clubs don't keep their players. 

So, Borussia Dortmund could have a top squad, the same can be said about Bayer Leverkusen, Sevilla, Valencia, AS Monaco, and the list goes on. You see, the reason clubs like the ones mentioned above behave the way they do isn't because they love to soak up the money, most of the clubs mentioned aren't even owned by one who takes all the profits, so it's not like it's all about profit on a wealth note, but it is about the profit for another reason. 

Top clubs are bullies, we've already gone through this in the [last part with Bayern](https://peakd.com/hive-101690/@amirtheawesome1/how-bayern-munich-destroyed-german-football-all-the-bullying). 


# Bayern Isn't The Only Bully 

This extends to clubs in Spain like Real Madrid and Barcelona. There's no doubt in the minds of even their fans that Real Madrid and Barcelona are bullying the other clubs and limiting their growth, why else would the gap be so big between the two clubs and the rest? So, yes, Bayern Munich isn't the only club doing it. But, the point of this series isn't to single them out but to confront this lie and halo people created around Bayern that they're just a smart club stuck with idiots.

"Bayern shouldn't pay the price for working hard", "It's not Bayern's fault that the other clubs can't keep their players", and "Bayern's success comes only from their hard and smart work". This happens all the time with Bayern as if it is some kind of a godly club, especially when Bayern wins the UEFA Champions League. There's this image that Bayern's success was only built on the club's wisdom with signings and management, and that's utter nonsense. 

I am not saying that Bayern Munich's management isn't smart, I am not even saying that its management is ahead of the rest, and I am not that the club's signings aren't wise. Those could all be facts, I am not disputing them, but that is simply not enough to dominate a league the way Bayern did. You can't create such a gap, whether in Germany, Spain, Italy, etc.. without actually bullying. Bullying in terms of legal and moral sense. 

There's this vicious circle created where smaller clubs can't grow because they're not seen, therefore they don't matter. Smaller clubs want to be seen, so they require some money, but can't get it because, of course, they're not seen. Top clubs cheat to get extra perks because they are seen, the rest aren't seen so they can't get the perks and they can't grow without those perks. Do you see why it's a vicious circle? 

But before we get to the final point, let's actually answer the question, why can't these clubs hold on to their players? And let's stay specifically in Germany. 

# Haaland and Co

Do you ever wonder why Haaland chose to play for Borussia Dortmund? I mean, even at Red Bull Salzburg, he has sought after. So, why go there specifically? The answer is obviously he wanted to play in a more competitive league for some time before going to the most competitive leagues. Haaland chose Borussia Dortmund not because he believed in the team, but because he knew he could easily leave afterwards. This leaves one question, why would Borussia Dortmund agree to that?

The answer is pretty simple, without accepting the conditions of adding a 75 million release clause to a player who already had a higher market value than that, you wouldn't have that player. To those unaware, there was a time when Borussia Dortmund stole deals from Bayern Munich in the early 2000s, they took the chances with the signings and even won the league, the result for that was a 200 million debt. More on that later. 


Add to that the low broadcasting revenue, and you'd realize that the big sales the club makes every year or two aren't a luxury, but a necessity to keep the club running. There's no such thing as "keeping their players" in the face of the offers and the seduction of titles and high salaries. Haaland was making 130K a week at Borussia Dortmund, he's currently making almost 7 times that amount at Manchester City. 

Your next question might be, why not just keep him? Have the players stayed for the duration of their contracts? Well, then why would those players come to Borussia Dortmund? Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen, and even the Red Bull franchise club, RB Leipzig, can't offer the wages. They can't guarantee they'd even compete for the title. 

So, if players like Haaland, Sancho, and now Jude Bellingham saw the players before them unable to leave because of Dortmund's refusal to sell, then they wouldn't join in the first place.

You see, clubs like Dortmund, Sevilla, and many others have only one appeal that would allow them to attract players with huge potential, game time at the top level with the perks that you will leave when you want to. This extends to all the clubs in Germany and Spain that are among the top 4 races yet never win the league. So, without this constant player flow, they can't get those top stars. 

Dortmund can't compete for the titles because they can't keep their players, they can't keep their players because they can't compete on the pitch, and they also can't compete financially because they can't compete on the pitch. But, this complicated vicious circle is forgotten because

# Top Clubs Narrative 

Because clubs like Bayern, Real Madrid, Barcelona, and the rest are so popular, the narrative they come up with is what is remembered during the conflict because they have enough glory to back it up. A club like Leverkusen could never come off authentic without sounding "jealous" when criticizing Bayern Munich, similar to Real Betis and other clubs in Spain. 

So, when these clubs claim that all the glory they reached is because they "worked hard to get there." You can't refute that as a smaller club because then you're just a jealous hater who is incompetent as if the difference between these clubs and top clubs isn't thousands of hurdles and preferential treatment at every turn. 

An example of that narrative is the fact that among all the clubs in the Bundesliga, only one club didn't really pay for their stadium, and that club is Bayern Munich, not only that, they screwed and scammed the club that was supposed to be an equal partner to Bayern in that stadium, 1860 Munich and that's what the next topic will be all about.