Another season of Bayern bossing in Germany

Bavarians may be favourites to lift their seventh straight Bundesliga title but lack of spending power could make ruling Europe lot more difficult

MUMBAI: THE only thing predictable about the Premiership, which begins this week, is, well, its unpredictability. Buoyed by television money and soaring foreign investment, many Premiership clubs have the financial might to put up a fight and it isn’t without reason that the last time a team retained the league was in 2008-09 when Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United completed a hattrick.

With the Bundesliga, the story is different. Since United’s hattrick, Bayern Munich have won seven titles including a sixth successive Bundesliga crown last season. Juergen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund winning the league in 2010-11 and 2011-12 seem like they were from another era.

Last term, it did look like Bayern’s run would end.

A poor start to the league led to Carlo Ancelotti being fired and Jupp Heynckes called out of retirement to turn things around. And turn around they did, wrapping up the title with five games to spare and 21 points ahead of runners-up Schalke. In 2014-15, Bayern were Germany champions with seven games to spare. In 2013-14, that was achieved with six games in hand.

Heynckes has moved on, Niko Kovac has come in and his immediate task will be to get an ageing squad to avoid starting trouble. That means the Croatian will need to find players who can take some load off Arjen Robben (34) and Franck Ribery (35). Maybe even Thomas Mueller who, though 28, needs to rediscover his mojo. So, it will be on the likes of James Rodriguez, Leon Goretzka, Corentin Tolisso and Niklas Sule that Bayern will have to rely on if they have to maintain the grip on the Bundesliga.

What has worked in Bayern’s favour is the lack of competition even though the last four seasons have seen four different runners-up in Schalke, RB Leipzig, Dortmund and Vfl Wolfsburg.

Dortmund could again be their closest challengers but they haven’t been the same force, losing players to Bayern and other biggies of European football.

Bayern have snapped up Robert Lewandowski, Mario Goetze, who has since returned, and Mats Hummels from Dortmund over

the last few seasons. What has also hurt Dortmund are the departures of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Ilkay Guendogan in 2016-17 and Ousmane Dembele and Pierre-emerick Aubameyang last season.

Bayern’s domination, though, hasn’t harmed Brand Bundesliga. Clubs record profits, the average attendance of over 44,000 is the highest among the top-five European leagues and at 25.2, its average age is among the lowest. The problem is keeping those youngsters.

In the transfer market Bayern too are finding it difficult to compete. While they have successfully raided Bundesliga clubs, they have often been outbid by

European giants. Bayern’s record signing is Frenchman Tolisso for whom they paid Lyon slightly over €40 million (₹317.9 crore now) last season. Forget the big guns, Everton paid more for Gylfi Sigurdsson last season.

Bayern Munich chief executive Karl-heinz Rummenigge has asked the Bundesliga to scrap the 50-plus-one rule, which effectively bars big investors from taking over. Rummenigge again spoke about this during the club’s

US tour last month, saying that the rule was preventing Bundesliga teams from being competitive in Europe.

Fiscal management and success in Europe, it seems, are mutually exclusive.