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Bayern Munich fans must be looking forward with relish to the Champions League final. They have home advantage, a great side and a relatively beatable opponent in Chelsea FC.
Bayern stand to lose money if they win the Champions League
This is the chance for the Bavarians to relive the glory days of the 1970s when they dominated Europe and won this trophy three years in a row.
Along with the glory would come enormous financial benefits.
Except that they won’t.
The prize money for winning the tournament is €9m, with €5.6 for reaching the losing finalists.
That’s a whole hunk of €3.4m extra on top of the glory.
So what’s the problem?
According to Eurosport, the problem lies in the minutiae of the transfer deals that brought goalkeeper Manuel Neuer from Schalke and Luiz Gustavo from Hoffenheim.
The two smaller clubs managed to inject ‘success clauses’ into the contracts. These clauses guaranteed them additional money if Bayern were successful in the Champions League.
Schalke received €2 million already from Bayern reaching the final, but are due a whopping €6 million should Munich win. That extra €4 million alone will wipe out the €3.4 million Bayern receive for winning as opposed to losing the final.
Hoffenheim are due an extra €2 million should Bayern win, on top of the 1 million from reaching the final.
And they say that the rest of German is slow to support Bayern Munich in European competition.
Maybe not this time.
3 Comments
This is a really interesting side note. Might even change how I watch the match. Thanks for reporting on this.
Good business on the part of both Schalke and Hoffenheim. Still going to cheer for Bayern Munchen to claim the glory. Thanks for this interesting information.
It would be interesting to compare the amount of the success payments made to the other German sides to the estimated overall revenue generated by going to, and possibly winning the final. Even though the success clause accounts for a significant proportion of the tournament payout, would the non-tournament Euros brought in as a result of the success eventually moot the amount paid because of the success clause?