FC Bayern Munich: Annual general meeting is a disaster

opinion

For the management of FC Bayern this evening of the annual general meeting must have felt like the lost penalty shootout in 2012 in the “Finale Dahoam”. The bosses of the largest German club looked shocked, stunned, angry: the mob had rebelled. The members of FC Bayern München eV had exercised their right to open their mouths and express criticism. Obviously an affront for the top gentlemen. The event revealed why there has been a crisis between the club and the executive floor for years: the bosses were incomprehensible, arrogant, sometimes disgustingly arrogant.

In the Kingdom of Säbener Strasse, criticism is not welcome. Especially when it comes to a subject that is very sensitive because it is expensive: Qatar. With a view to the World Cup in the coming year, more and more fans are asking themselves how they can enjoy watching a football tournament without being complicit in the human rights violations, exploitation of migrant workers, open sexism and the oppression of minorities, as in the emirate is the case.

For FC Bayern fans, this problem is even more personal. Your club has been cooperating with the desert state for years and their players step onto the Bundesliga playing fields week after week with a “Qatar Airways” logo on their sleeves. Her training camp also takes place in Qatar.

Kahn ducks away, Hainer is patronizing

So reason enough to talk about it – even if not everyone wanted to. CEO Oliver Kahn managed better to hide from the topic than earlier to scratch balls out of the corners of his goal. That evening, Kahn didn’t even utter the word “Qatar”.

President Hainer, on the other hand, chose the “attack is the best defense” tactic and addressed the issue openly. The club would face an objective discourse, so Hainer with a patronizing grin, but a choice of words such as “mean or cowardly” does not suit FC Bayern. When criticism came from the audience in the form of boos, Hainer looked confused and stared into the ranks for a moment like an authoritarian father who for the first time receives objections from his child. Until he smugly asked whether the fans in the hall would have anything against a factual discourse?

At some point money is so bloody that it no longer stinks

In these short episodes alone, Hainer shows what a brainchild he and the rest of the management team at Bayern are: as long as the fans fill the stadium, pay merchandise and ticket money and make FC Bayern an attractive product with their support, they are welcome. But one does not tolerate inquiries. On Säbener Strasse, it is not decency that prevails, but business. And at some point money is so bloody that it no longer stinks.

When Uli Hoeneß was informed a few weeks ago in “Sport1 Doppelpass” by the journalist Lucas Vogelsang that more than 6,500 workers had already been killed in the construction of the stadium in Qatar, he replied: “Yes, but in 10 years … “. A punch line is probably not needed in this case.

The completely insane choice of Qatar as a World Cup location is one thing. To do business with such an unscrupulous regime as a privately run club, actually determined by members, is another matter. But then to dictate to your critics in what way they are allowed to criticize this business is hard to beat when it comes to arrogance.

FC Bayern has lost its moral compass with its Qatar deal at the latest. Or rather: thrown in a high arc out of the window. The argument “the other clubs all do the same” should not be the yardstick. And despite all the performance that the club has shown in the past decades, he shouldn’t forget what he stands for every Saturday: Not for sheikhs and business partners, but for his fans.