Bayern Munich CEO comes out fighting after Liverpool and Newcastle United signings

Bayern Munich are really not bothered, honest.

Denied the signings of Florian Wirtz and Nick Woltemade this summer, two players they were desperate to bring to Bayern Munich.

As the dominant team in Germany, winning the Bundesliga season after season, the reigning champions believing themselves to be entitled to sign any homegrown talent that comes through at another German club.

Bayern Munich losing out this summer to Newcastle United and Liverpool on their targets.

Nick Woltemade and Florian Wirtz playing in the Premier League rather than the Bundesliga.

A seemingly never ending queue of prominent Bayern Munich figures lining up to cry about Liverpool and especially Newcastle United, coming in to buy these young German stars instead of standing back and letting Bayern Munich have a free run on them.

Liverpool committing to a £116m (£100m plus potentially £15m more in future add-ons) deal for Wirtz, whilst for Woltemade, Newcastle United committing to a £69.3m (£65m plus another £4.3m in potential future add-ons) deal.

Life is just not fair.

The latest major Bayern Munich figure to speak out, following the likes of Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, is Jan-Christian Dreesen.

The Bayern Munich CEO talking to BILD about competing for new signings – 4 October 2025:

“We can afford any signing we want.

“FC Bayern is doing very well [financially].

“But we want to be able to pay a player without having to run to the bank.

“That is not FC Bayern’s DNA.

“The bottom team in the English league, at €125m (£109m), has €60m more in media revenue than us.

“Liverpool has €200m (£175m), while FC Barcelona and Real Madrid each have €160m (£139m).”

No club wants to pay more money than they have to BUT just like anything else in life, the value of something is what someone is prepared to pay for it. Whether that is a car, house…or football player.

What the Bayern Munich CEO is referring to here, is the amount of money paid to clubs for the 2024/25 season, due to their league placing and other domestic TV cash from numbers of a club’s Premier League games shown live and so on.

As Jan-Christian Dreesen refers to, Liverpool received £174.9m (€200m) from the Premier League payouts after finishing top of the table. Whilst Southampton finished bottom but still banked £109.2m (€125m).

The Bundesliga payout to Bayern Munich after they finished top last season, only €65m (£56m), whilst in La Liga the payout was £139m (€160m) to each of Barcelona and Real Madrid.

In La Liga, half of the money is split equally between all of the clubs in the top tier. However, the other 50% isn’t. It is constructed so that as much as possible goes to Barcelona and Real Madrid.

With 25% allocated based on ‘club popularity and commercial impact’, whilst the final 25% depends on league position, with it massively weighted to those in the top spots. Which is where you always find Real Madrid and Barcelona.

The past 21 seasons, in 18 of them Real Madrid have finished first or second, the other three seasons in third position.

The past 22 seasons, in 20 of them Barcelona have finished first or second the other two seasons in third.

It is amusing to hear the Bayern Munich CEO bragging about the financial power of the club. When you consider that the overwhelming majority of the cash they have isn’t due to matchday income or payouts from TV deals based on how they do in their domestic league and the Champions League.

Bayern Munich are funded by huge amounts of sponsor money and other commercial deals paying for the signings they make. Such as when they paid £100m for a 30 year old Harry Kane and offered him huge wages.

The Deloitte 2025 rich list of clubs in the world, showed Bayern Munich fifth highest in terms of turnover in the 2023/24 season.

A total of €765m (£666m), with that breaking down into revenues from Matchday €131m (£114m), Broadcasting €213m (£185m) and Commercial €421m (£367m).

The truth is that Bayern Munich are given massive financial power to compete with clubs in other leagues, simply due to companies handing over huge amounts of money (most of it from German businesses).

This extraordinary funding from sponsors/commercial also makes it all but impossible for any other German clubs to challenge them.

No wonder nobody wants to watch German domestic football on TV, especially when it comes to football fans around the world. When Bayern Munich win it season after season, 12 Bundesliga titles in the last 13 years.

Compare that to the last 13 Premier League seasons, five different clubs have won the league title in this time period.