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Bavaria's club boss Karl-Heinz Rummenigge
Photo: Arne Dedert / dpa
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge used the controversial "G15" meeting in professional football to harsh words to the four Bundesliga clubs that were not invited.
"We have expressly decided that the area of competence lies with the DFL Presidium. I think we are well advised not to send any impulse papers through the republic about what has happened at other clubs," said the boss of Bayern Munich in Frankfurt / Main with a view to the approach of the four first division clubs FSV Mainz 05, VfB Stuttgart, Arminia Bielefeld and FC Augsburg as well as ten second division clubs.
They had spoken out in favor of a new distribution key for the TV funds.
These four clubs would put pressure on the executive committee of the German Football League to achieve a change in the distribution of money.
"We don't want that," said Rummenigge.
"The four Bundesliga clubs and the ten second division teams threw gauntlets on us."
According to Rummenigge, the league's "solidarity pact" has been broken.
The excluded clubs had previously also criticized the exclusive meeting as lacking in solidarity.
Voices from the clubs accuse the "G15" of wanting to gain control of opinion in public.
In addition, the solidarity propagated at the beginning of the corona crisis is counteracted by the elitist gathering.
What else a task force for?
Normally, the first and second division teams consult in full at their DFL general meetings.
Top officials from 14 first division football clubs and Hamburger SV were invited to the originally secret meeting in the Airport Club, but not DFB or DFL representatives or the quartet with Mainz, Augsburg, Stuttgart and Bielefeld.
This had caused displeasure in advance.
The future distribution of media revenue has long been a controversial topic in professional football.
The clubs below the top clubs and fan organizations advocate more equal opportunities.
The distribution of income from media contracts from the 2021/2022 season onwards amounts to 4.4 billion euros from national media revenues, which will be shared among the 36 professional clubs until the end of the 2024/2025 season.
According to dpa information, a DFL general meeting is planned for December 7th, but the decision will be made by the nine-member DFL Presidium.
Jan-Christian Dreesen, board member of FC Bayern, sits there as the only representative of a top club.
Most recently, the DFL Presidium had also founded the "Future Professional Football Taskforce" with 35 experts from different areas of life - one of the goals of this is to promote justice issues.
Now the Bundesliga clubs seem to want to pre-empt this task force.
At the same time, Rummenigge also said that the topic of TV revenues "was not discussed in any big way".
Other topics were the successor to Christian Seifert and the crisis at the DFB.
"Frankfurter Kreis" wants to meet in the future too
Discussions about the distribution of media income are particularly topical in the Corona year - for the first time in a long time, income from the TV business is falling.
"Unfortunately, we have a problem that we have around 200 million euros less national income and almost 100 million less international income. That means for the first time in a long, long time all 36 clubs will have less in the bag," said Rummenigge of the Bundesliga TV revenue.
However, the economic imbalance between top clubs like FC Bayern and the rest of the 1st and 2nd league is mainly due to the money from the Champions League.
In the past season, the Munich team earned over 130 million euros from UEFA's TV business with their Champions League victory.
The "Frankfurter Kreis" was initiated by Rummenigge and the other top clubs Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen.
The Bayern boss spoke of a "very good meeting".
One is always ready to enlarge this group, said Rummenigge.
It also seems clear that there will be more meetings in the future.
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jan / dpa / sid
