‘No debt, no sheikh, no oligarch, no hedge fund’ — Bayern Munich proud of operating model
FC Bayern has not experienced any major dips in years.
26 March 2026, North Rhine-Westphalia, Münster: Uli Hoeneß, Honorary President of FC Bayern Munich, sits on stage at the Data and AI Festival. Photo: Bernd Thissen/dpa (Photo by Bernd Thissen/picture alliance via Getty Images) Bayern Munich legend and supervisory board member Uli Hoeneß knows that life was not always so easy at the club, but he is proud of how FC Bayern has embraced who it is and how to stay on top. “One of my life lessons is: Getting to the top is possible and relatively easy.
But once you’re there, the air gets thinner, they pull at you, they want to tear you down. When I hear our competitors say, ‘The economic advantage, the economic advantage’ – don’t you think that Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Stuttgart would have had the same conditions we found in Munich? That will be the challenge for our successors in the coming years: to defend the status we have today,” Hoeneß told FAZ (as captured by @iMiaSanMia ).
“Because I have to say, FC Bayern is in better shape than it has been in a long time. And I’m not the only one saying that. When we meet up with our friends from Real Madrid before Champions League matches, they always ask: How do you do it?
No debt, no sheikh, no oligarch, no hedge fund. That’s what we can be proud of. ” Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge have played massive roles in ensuring that Bayern Munich reached this level, but will eventually have to step down from the supervisory board and hand over the reins.