How Have Bayern Munich Come to Dominate the Bundesliga?

Previously published by Tom Cremins & Matthias Sturm on One Fan and His Blog.

Bayern Munich obliterated Eintracht Frankfurt 6-1 in Frankfurt on the opening day of the 2022/23 season. Just two and a half months previously Eintracht had lifted the Europa League Trophy in Seville.

No single team has dominated one of the top 5 European leagues for as long as Bayern Munich have in Germany. Last season the Bavarian club completed a remarkable decade of complete dominance of the Bundesliga, making a total of 31 league titles since the founding of the league in 1963. Added to that they have won the national cup competition (DFB-Pokal) 20 times. They are the only club to have won all three major European competitions.

Nobody has been able to land a glove on Bayern, Borussia Dortmund have challenged in recent years but have found it hard to sustain it. Their last title came in the 2011/2012 season, completing back-to-back championships under the guidance of Jürgen Klopp. For the seasons before Bayern were not able to win back-to-back titles and fell short in years following the Euro and World Cup, which was attributed to the amount of Bayern players selected for the German national team.

Bayern have of course been Germany’s most successful club in European club competitions. But there is an argument that they have held German clubs back on the continental stage. Bayern have consistently acquired talent on an off the field from their closest Bundesliga rivals and have been criticized for deliberately weakening their national competition.

Continue to read and look for Part 2 and Part 3 on One Fan and His Blog.

And so it continues … Qatar 2022

Despite government reforms, migrant workers continued to face labour abuses and struggled to change jobs freely. Curtailment of freedom of expression increased in the run-up to FIFA World Cup 2022. 

Amnesty International Report 2021/22, p. 305

The recently released report on The State of the World’s Human Rights says about Qatar:

• Employers continue to oversee the entry and residence of migrant workers, including powers to cancel residency permits or file cases accusing employees of absconding.
• Migrant workers continued to fall victim to wage theft by their employers without effective recourse to justice.
• Authorities continued to fail to investigate properly the deaths of migrant workers, thousands of whom have died suddenly and unexpectedly in the past decade.
• Workers’ bereaved families were denied the opportunity to receive compensation from employers or authorities.