The big picture in this series cannot be complete without each part of it explored. This is why I encourage people to check out previous posts before getting to this one.

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The Ugly Side Of Financial Fair Play
Part 3: Before The Berlin Wall Fell
part 4: Before The Berlin Wall Fell Part 2
Part 5: After The Berlin Wall Fell
Part 6: The Kirch Group Deal
Part 7: All The Bullying
Part 8: A Meaningless Competition In A Vicious Circle
Part 9: The Truth About The Allianz Arena

Around eleven years ago, on the 6th of February 2012, after drawing against Hamburger SV which gave Borussia Dortmund two extra points at the top of the Bundesliga during a time were the competition between Bayern Munich was in its most intense period in terms of football and media, Uli Hoeness went to the media and said Bayern saved Dortmund from bankruptcy with €2m loan 10 years ago.

Before we get into this, you should know that this statement is the beginning of more topics than just this one, I am saying this now because it will be needed later. Before that statement, no one knew that Bayern lend Dortmund those two million. When Dortmund's CEO, Hans-Joachim Watzke, was asked about it, he didn't deny it. So, where's the problem? It turned out that Bayern Munich didn't only help other teams in the Bundesliga, but those other teams include its biggest rival.

The problem is what Watzke said in response as he didn't stop at not denying the loan. Watzke added, "I'd rather sleep under the bridge and go begging than ask our biggest rival for help". What prompts Watzke to make such a heated statement? Was this a proper way of acknowledging a favour from people who save your club from bankruptcy? Well, that's the main point here:

Bayern Didn't Save Borussia Dortmund From Bankruptcy

There are more details to this to excuse what Watzke said. The first one is the fact that Watzke wasn't even the person who took that loan in the first place as he wasn't even in Borussia Dortmund at the time, instead, the club was led by Gerd Niebaum and Michael Meier who were the club's president and CEO respectively.

During the beginning of 2000, the pair managed to steal two deals from Bayern Munich, the first was a player many of you may recognize, Tomáš Rosický, who moved from Sparta Prague for a Dortmund record fee of 8 million, which was more than Bayern's offer. The second was Sebastian Kehl, the defender and centre-defensive midfielder, who not only was close to signing with Bayern but even received a singing bonus.

However, Dortmund managed to offer him a higher salary as well as a higher transfer fee to his club at the time, SC Freiburg. Worth noting that Sebastian Kehl is currently Dortmund's sporting director.

The reason these deals matter is that first, that was the last time a club in the Bundesliga ever done something like that to Bayern who were furious at the time. The second reason is that this was a sign that Dortmund got a fever of what later would happen to 1860 Munich, which is a great sense of self-aggrandizing. An illusion that they could keep up with Bayern Munich despite its huge advantage. That illusion was made worse by the fact that Dortmund won the league in 2002.

The issue came after that when Dortmund couldn't qualify for the UEFA Champions League in 2005 and 2006 respectively. That's when the club collapsed on Gerd Niebaum and Michael Meier's heads as it turned out the reason they were able to out-pay Bayern Munich was that they didn't have the money in the first place. They borrowed the money assuming that they would get all the glory and titles to pay for it later. Gerd Niebaum and Michael Meier managed to put Dortmund 200 million in debt. 200 million in 2005, in today's world that's not far from what happened in Barcelona.

The 1% That "Saved" Dortmund

This was a scandal. But, hell to them, right? Why would they do that? Well, after that time Watzke came in and the club became wiser running itself, which by the way that's partly the reason Dortmund treat talents the way they do. The issue is that Mier went to Uli and asked for a 2 million euro loan to just pay a month's worth of salaries. Uli agreed. The terms were 1.5 million would be returned as is and the remaining 500 thousand would be returned with a 5% interest, just as a sign of a good deed.

It was in fact a good deed, as 5% interest is very low for such a sum of money. However, if you take into consideration that Bayern cost Dortmund more than that amount a few years earlier it doesn't sound like much. But, most importantly, that was 1% of the total debt. Still, where's the problem exactly? There's none, really. Then why did Watzke react the way he did?

The reason for Watzke's reaction is that he knew that Uli and Bayern would spin the story into that narrative where Bayern saved Dortmund. Was Uli supposed to pay the entire debt? No, he wasn't even required to pay the 1% he did, but at the same time, when Uli paid the money, he was just supposed to put it in the correct context. So, when describing that loan, Uli shouldn't have described it as "Bayern saved Dortmund" for such a silly amount of money compared to the total required.

"All the clubs do that", I mean we do see it everywhere, Laporta kept talking about the Unicef partnership for years. All the clubs exaggerate in front of the media to show themselves as lovers of good things for the sake of the good things. No club is an exception. There are three differences, however:

• No one believes the clubs when they do that. Still, people believe that Bayern helped Dortmund with good intentions.

• People use that instance to describe Bayern as a club that doesn't take advantage of other clubs' situations and is intended on helping the other clubs in the league.

• When Bayern gave Dortmund the 2 million loan over the period of 6 weeks, the club did so for its own benefit.

You probably figured out the real reason Bayern helped out Dortmund at the time. It is because, besides Dortmund, no club is harmed by Dortmund's bankruptcy more than Bayern Munich itself. Dortmund, along with all the other clubs in the Bundesliga has only one role as far as Bayern is concerned, developing talents for Bayern to use.

The fact of the matter is, as years went by and for 50 years at least, with the exception of the 90s after the Berlin wall fell, the Bundesliga as a whole was serving as Bayern's academy. And as we saw in Dortmund's attempt to overtake Bayern under Gerd Niebaum and Michael Meier, there isn't any healthy way clubs in the Bundesliga could overtake Bayern. Thus, Bayern can take the best players in the league, and for prices that can't be found elsewhere.

The reason the term "destroyed" is actually not accurate, and I will explain this further in the final part, is that Bayern, much like Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, doesn't actually want the other clubs in the league to perish. The three wouldn't benefit if clubs like Dortmund, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg, Sevilla, Valencia, Betis, and the rest disappeared from the league, however, they can't take a title from them. They should only exist to give these clubs players. They want to domesticate them.

They want these clubs to go all over the country and the world to find talents that they could then buy after giving them the minutes they can't give and then sell them the players to win the league and UEFA Champions League titles. They simply exist to do Bayern's leg work and sell them, players, for cheap, sometimes totally free.

The result is that the accumulative advantages that Bayern gained through the years, some are legal and moral, some are one of the two, and some are neither, lead to one path, Bayern takes everything and RB Leipzig is the latest example. RB Leipzig not only couldn't compete, and not only accumulated debts like Dortmund from before, but last year Bayern was actually able to take the club's best defender and midfielder, even though the latter wasn't even needed and was benched. Also, they liked the coach and took him as well.

So, the question about Bayern becomes, what would Bayern have done if those clubs disappeared? People speak of Bayern's good work as if the club didn't benefit. I mean Bayern paid 2 million for Dortmund, Robert Lewandowski alone was worth more than that later. It's like a homeless finding a golden ring in the street and then someone buys it from him for 2 sandwiches and expects a thank you.

That's the pattern with Bayern Munich. The club isn't to blame for the fall of others, but that never stopped Uli from exploiting the clubs. That's also why Uli, Rummenigge and the Bayern administration express anger whenever German clubs sell their players to foreign clubs since this is Bayern's territory.