Reducing Wages and Investing in Youth: Whats Going On at FC Bayern Munich?
Christian Nerlinger, in his first term as director of sport at Bayern Munich, has been talking about loads of changes which are about to take place at Bayern. He almost seems to be Uli Hoeness’ brother. He has been talking about the wages at the club. Due to the current economic situation, Bayern has decided that players cannot just walk away with bags of cash and not be affected by the economic problems because they are part of a debt-free, rich club. He has—to be precise—been talking about wage reduction. What interests me more than this topic, is that of investing in youth. Bayern has, in recent years, been involved in buying plenty of players from either other German clubs or overseas. Currently, their starting lineup consists of only four homegrown players. Since Louis Van Gaal came to the club, he has relied heavily on two youngsters: Thomas Muller and Holger Badstuber. Their performances are rarely poor, and even when they are, they can be looked at as average performances. Also
