With nothing left to add to this conversation, I think it's a good time to wrap it up. So, before I share my final conclusion, I thought I'd present an overview of the series that would also serve as an ultimate guide for those interested in certain details but not others.

Introduction

In that post, I obviously introduced the subject with two key pieces of information that set up all the important events at Bayern. The first is the club's history prior to the 1970s which includes the club president being targetted by Adolf Hitler. This fact also meant that the club wasn't that popular in Germany afterwards either due to certain regulations which led to the club's financial situation being abysmal.

The second piece of information is the introduction of Ulrich Hoeneß. The player started at Bayern in the 1970s at 18. His time of arrival coincided with what would later become a golden generation of the club considering that his generation included Sepp Maier, Gerd Müller, and Franz Beckenbauer. Obviously, the club's financial state was still bad, however, it wouldn't be bad for long.

The Ugly Side Of Financial Fair Play

In this part, we found out that Bayern's financial situation wouldn't be bad for long and was always going to improve because of the financial state of football in Germany overall as Germany always had the advantage because of their large stadium in a popular area and the 50+1 rule prevented any other clubs from investing which led to the pendulum slowly swinging toward Bayern's way.

However, and perhaps most importantly, in this part, we also learn that Hoeneß wasn't content with that advantage and seek to improve it by modelling the club's academy after academies in the Netherlands and learning from the masters of marketing in the United States which made the club even strong.

Before The Berlin Wall Fell: part 1 and part 2

While everything was going Bayern's way in the 1970s and 1980s, a slow change was being made in the form of the Berlin wall collapse that would hinder Bayern's progression. In those two parts, we explore the state of football and sport overall in East Germany compared to West Germany and how the latter was considered a safe haven for the former.

While Bayern is never mentioned in either part, they both lead to answer the question, of why did Bayern lose its grip on the Bundesliga in the 1990s. A point that is further elaborated by part 5 of the series.

After The Berlin Wall Fell

After the collapse of the Berlin wall, West Germany, or just Germany at that point, found itself overflowing with an abundance of talents who used to live in poor conditions and were severely underpaid in comparison to players in the west. The merging of the two leagues left many players up to grabs as many clubs found themselves getting into lower and lower tiers in German football.

This affected Bayern as it no longer had control over talents in Germany as it couldn't sign everyone and couldn't prevent the other clubs from signing them. Add that to the fact that those players were cheap in both transfer fee and salary aspects and you get why other German clubs had a glorious decade in the 1990s. But, that quickly changed at the turn of the century.

The Kirch Group Deal

This was the first action where Bayern was both acting immorally and illegally. Bayern pressured all the Bundesliga clubs to sign a deal with Kirch Group Media for equal amounts for all the clubs while signing a secret deal that ensured them more than 20 million a year, which the club then spent to weaken the German clubs. This matter was made worse by their subsequent reaction after being caught

All The Bullying

After getting caught lying, Bayern refused any type of punishment which could and should have included having one of their titles withdrawn, returning over 40 million to be redistributed among all the other clubs, and being fined financially with an added bonus of a point deduction.

Bayern used its popularity to bully the league with threats to play in the Italian league instead. Everyone in German football couldn't do anything as Bayern escaped all punishments with the exception of paying a small 3 million fine for slithering their way into over 40 million plus whatever they cost the other clubs who couldn't negotiate their own deals with Kirch Group Media.

A Meaningless Competition In A Vicious Circle

In this part, I explored the reality that clubs in Germany can't compete and are forced into this role of being Bayern's academy and it's not as many imagine the situation of Bayern just being better. In a fair world, Bayern would have struggled financially for cheating over and over but aren't, Bayern's administration should have been banned but isn't.

Bayern's actions left the league a meaningless, stale league with no one able to do anything. It also completely disproves the stupid theory that clubs should have just kept their players as it wasn't possible.

The Truth About The Allianz Arena

Not much to say here, Bayern Munich used immoral methods to take advantage of TSV 1860 Munich's horrible predicament but enforcing a general manager on the club that only Bayern could fire, that general manager was also the person who helped Bayern previously in the Kirch Group Media deal.

The result of Bayern's actions was a club that owned 33% of a 340 million stadium being stripped away from it using deceitful methods and just 12 million in return.

Bayern's "Charity"

This part aimed to contextualize all the myths told about Bayern helping the other clubs in Germany when the reality wasn't that at all. Bayern was helping Bayern and that was it and for any euro they spent to "help" others, they made 10 in return. The part also decimates the idea that Bayern "saved" Borussia Dortmund with a 2 million loan in any shape or form.

It's All Interconnected

This is where it is pointed out that many of the actions Bayern committed were actually not coincidences, from having a Kirch Group Media friend help them get a stadium all the way to using their relationship with Addidas in a conflict of interest way. Many of the things Bayern did in the new century should have had alarms ringing. The most obvious one is the fact that the man who used Addidas' money to buy an 8.33 share of Bayern Munich as CEO is the same man who later became Bayern's president, Herbert Hainer.

Conclusion

Despite the title, no, Bayern didn't destroy German football. There's no one entity or one club that could destroy football in an entire nation just because it decided to. Life is more complicated than that. Bayern can't destroy it and wouldn't want to if it could. The Bundesliga after all is Bayern's backyard.

Without Dortmund, how could Bayern get Lewandowskig for free, then Hummels and Süle? Without Bayer Leverkusen, how could Bayern get the three best players in the club's history, Ballack, Ze Roberto, and Lucio? Without Werder Bremen, Bayern can't get Claudio Pizarro and Miroslav Klose. The list goes on and on, it even extends to RB Leipzig.

So, is Bayern destroying German football? No, but is Bayern always seeking to out its competition and crushing them? Yes. Is Bayern using illegal and immoral methods to do so sometimes? Yes. While all of that happening, does Bayern still have an elite-level administration leading it? Yes. All of those things are true at the same time.

Can we say the same things about other top clubs in the world? Yes. Is it equally bad among all? I don't, the law of possibilities suggests that if we talk about all the cheap methods top clubs use against smaller clubs, they wouldn't all be equally bad across the board. They can't all be equally bad just so no fan is offended. So, if everyone is doing it, why talk about Bayern in specific?

Well, I have talked about other clubs and will talk about other clubs in the future. As to why talk about it, then it is only to explore new information previously unknown. The goal of this series isn't to attack Bayern Munich fans and defenders or accuse them of being immoral so they'd clear themselves. On the contrary, the point is that we cut this utopian link we have with our clubs.

We also need to cut this stupid identification we have with clubs as institutions, they are, after all, companies running to benefit themselves. It doesn't matter if they're called Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, or Barcelona supported by others, or even Arsenal supported by me. It would be very similar to identifying yourself with Amazon or Netflix. So, if it turns out tomorrow that Arsenal has been bribing their way through the league, why would I defend it?

There's a big difference between liking a club, a logo, a player, or a football style and identifying with them, with their symbols, with their behaviours, and their principles, if they even had any.

Sources

Uli Hoeneß: The man who made Bayern Munich a global superpower
HOW THE BIGGEST MATCH-FIXING SCANDAL IN BUNDESLIGA HISTORY CHANGED THE GERMAN GAME FOREVER
Tor!: The Story of German Football
Bayern Munich's Trophies
How Did Bayern Munich Become So DOMINANT?! | Explained

Bayern Munich embrace anti-Nazi history after 80 years of silence
The Money Saving Hacks of FC Bayern Munich
Bayern Munich’s dominance benefits and blights German football
Uli Hoeness: From young visionary to old-school patriarch
Watching the fall of the Berlin Wall: 'I downed almost an entire bottle of schnapps'
THE EAST GERMAN CURSE: HOW FOOTBALLING REUNIFICATION FAILED
The forgotten story of ... East Germany's DDR-Oberliga
ELEVEN PIGS AND THE SECRET POLICE: THE STORY OF BFC DYNAMO
On this day: GDR star Frank Lippmann’s escape at the “Miracle of Uerdingen”
Murder mystery of Lutz Eigendorf
What happened to East Germany's top football clubs?
The 1990s: Reshaping the Bundesliga
Bayer 04 Leverkusen transfer history
Bundesliga rocked by Bayern scandal
Bayern threaten to join Serie A over dispute with Bundesliga
Why Bayern Munich Threatened To Join Serie A
World exclusive: Man Utd and Liverpool driving 'Project Big Picture' - football’s biggest shake-up in a generation
The European Super League is back on the table
Bundesliga fears crisis from Kirch collapse
Kirch could lose Bundesliga rights
Bundesliga Opens Under Clouds of Scandal
Bayern Munich transfer history
Soccer-Beckenbauer and Villar named in FIFA ethics probe
Bayern Munich president threatens Germany boycott if Joachim Low drops Manuel Neuer for Marc-Andre ter Stegen
Bayern Munich's Allianz Arena costs are paid off 15 years early
Allianz takes 8.33 percent stake in Bayern Munich football club
The Making of the Allianz Arena
TSV 1860 Munich - what's gone wrong?
DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR: WHY THE DOWNFALL OF 1860 MUNICH IS A CASE FOR GERMANY’S 50+1 RULE
Bayern Munich cancel Allianz Arena contract with 1860 Munich
Uli Hoeness: Bayern saved Dortmund from bankruptcy with €2m loan
It is only nine years since Bayern Munich bailed out Dortmund with €2m
Did Bayern really save Dortmund?
Die "Retterspiele" des FC Bayern unter Hoeneß
Adidas’ Hainer gets his foot in the door at Bayern
Ein Sechziger mit Bayern-Klausel