It’s December and, as of this article’s writing, Bayern Munich has some unlikely company near the top of the Bundesliga table. One would think a challenge to the stranglehold that Bayern and Borussia Dortmund have on German football would be welcomed, but the club ahead of them also happens to be the most hated club in Germany. For the first time since 2009, there is a club from the former East Germany in the top flight of the Bundesliga (Hertha Berlin doesn’t count since they played in the former West Berlin). The Bundesliga newcomers, RB Leipzig, represent only the fifth club from East Germany to have played in the Bundesliga. So why has there been so much wailing and gnashing of teeth about their arrival?
The RB Leipzig story started in 2009 when Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz purchased fifth division side FC Sachsen Leipzig, a club that had been facing financial difficulties. He had long sought to add a Bundesliga side to his growing sports empire which included Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg, MLS’s New York Red Bulls, and Red Bull Racing among others. After a €50 million investment, the club skyrocketed up the German football ladder and ultimately received a Bundesliga license in April 2014. In the 2015-16 season, RB Leipzig won 2. Bundesliga, meaning that they would play in the top flight of German football for the first time in club history in the 2016-17 season.
Despite the successes on the pitch, the club faces a torrent of hate off it. German football fans pride themselves on being a purist, traditional league where corporate interests take a back seat to fan interests. RB Leipzig bucks that trend. All nine of the founding members were Red Bull employees.
Additionally, they seem intent on destroying the spirit of the Bundesliga’s “50+1” rule. The 50+1 rule dictates that a club’s members (fans) must hold the majority of the voting interests in order to receive a license to play in the Bundesliga. RB Leipzig got around this rule by only having Red Bull employees as members. Dietrich Mateschitz has previously spoken out about his distaste for organized fans, a huge part of the culture of the German game. They also made their membership fees exorbitantly higher than other clubs. For comparison, Bayern Munich, the biggest and most successful club in Germany, has around 250,000 members who pay a small initial membership fee and €30-60 per year in club dues. RB Leipzig charges a €100 fee to join and club dues are €800 per year.
The club also faced backlash for its name and badge. Initially, the club’s official name was Red Bull Leipzig, just like every other team in the Red Bull Empire. Their badge was a shield with Red Bull on top and Leipzig across the bottom with the Red Bull logo in the middle. In the same spirit as the 50+1 rule, the Bundesliga doesn’t allow corporate brands in club names or badges. So they tweaked the bulls a bit and changed the club’s official name from Red Bull Leipzig to RasenBallsport Leipzig.
All of this has been perceived by a large number of German fans as the corruption of the Bundesliga. More so than other fans, German fans pride themselves on supporting a league in which the fans are put first and their interests are protected, as seen in the 50+1 rule. As such, RB Leipzig are seen as a club trying to destroy that model which could potentially lead to Bundesliga teams becoming playthings for billionaires like Chelsea and Manchester City in English Premier League and Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1. Widespread fan protest has led to clubs across Germany refusing to play RB Leipzig in preseason friendlies.
In spite of all of this, the emergence of RB Leipzig is good for the Bundesliga. First of all, the presence of RB Leipzig will serve to increase the quality of football in East Germany. The legacy of the Iron Curtain still exists as East Germany lags behind West Germany in infrastructure as well as economically. Football is no different. Of all the players that played on the team that won Germany the World Cup in 2014, only Toni Kroos was from the former East Germany (Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski were born in Poland but played for Germany through familial connections).
As mentioned earlier, RB Leipzig represents only the fifth East German club to play in the Bundesliga since the fall of communism in the early 90’s. East German football has lagged behind the West for a long time but RB Leipzig could help bolster the football infrastructure in East Germany simply because they have the resources to not only get into the Bundesliga but to stay there.
They have the financial muscle, they have the modern training facilities and stadium required in this day and age, and they have smart football people running the club. In stark contrast to big money clubs like Chelsea, RB Leipzig have chosen to focus their efforts on building a strong youth system. RB Leipzig has a young core headlined by starlets like Timo Werner and Naby Keita. Sporting director Ralf Rangnick built strong youth systems at Schalke and Hoffenheim before coming to RB Leipzig and appears poised to build the same strong, young spine in Leipzig. If more East German players end up joining Toni Kroos in the German national team, we will likely have the RB Leipzig youth system to thank.
Like all sports, football is a business. In football, the teams with the most resources tend to win. With all of the Red Bull money behind them, RB Leipzig has the potential to become a force in a league that has been dominated by Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund over the last decade. The emergence of RB Leipzig could represent not only consistent Bundesliga football in East Germany but perhaps even the emergence of a superpower that could turn the big two into a big three.
Bayer Leverkusen, Schalke, and Wolfsburg have all put up ultimately short-lived challenges, but RB Leipzig seems like they have staying power due to the resource advantage that they hold over most other clubs. The presence of a big club in East Germany, even if it’s a club as hated as RB Leipzig, will ultimately increase football quality as well as fan support across the region. They will fill the void that former East German superpowers like Dynamo Berlin and Dynamo Dresden left when the Iron Curtain fell. As much as people love to pout about purity in football, there’s a reason Bayern and Dortmund have the most registered members in Germany: they win.
Whether or not the Red Bull empire is destroying football and fan culture really depends on which team you’re talking about. For example, the success of their MLS club the New York Red Bulls has played a role in the game’s meteoric rise in popularity in the United States over the last decade and also boasts one of the most robust fan cultures in America. However, the company’s involvement in European football with Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg as well as RB Leipzig. In Leipzig’s case, while there are legitimate concerns about the future of fan involvement if a club like Leipzig is allowed to thrive, I believe that the positives that they bring to the table, such as increased competition and development of the game’s infrastructure in the former East Germany, ultimately outweigh the negatives.
