Bayern Munich: The Last Empire You Can Cheer Without Guilt (Until VAR Overrules You)

Bayern Munich: The Bavarian Empire That Outlasted Empires
By Dave’s Locker International Correspondent

Munich, late afternoon. The Marienplatz bells toll exactly once before they remember that punctuality is a Prussian stereotype and decide to stay fashionably Bavarian. In the distance, the Allianz Arena glows like a gigantic discarded Tetris block—an alien mothership that landed on the banks of the Isar and discovered that Earthlings will pay €12 for a half-liter of beer if you promise them European glory. Somewhere inside, sporting director Max Eberl is negotiating another teenager’s future away with the cool detachment of a man selling sub-prime mortgages in 2007.

Welcome to FC Bayern, the only empire that still expands without firing a shot—unless you count the occasional warning shot across the bow of Borussia Dortmund’s transfer committee. While the rest of Europe debates borders, tariffs, and whether NATO should have a TikTok account, Bayern quietly redraws its own map with the precision of a Swiss banker counting war reparations. It is less a football club than a sovereign wealth fund that happens to host 75,000 seat-belted pilgrims every fortnight.

Globally, Bayern functions as a kind of soft-power hedge against German angst. The nation that gave us both Goethe and goose-stepping now exports Robert Lewandowski memes and Thomas Müller interviews that sound like IKEA instructions read aloud. In Singapore, office drones wear Alphonso Davies jerseys while eating laksa. In Lagos, barbers clip the “Sane 10” fade with clippers smuggled in by DHL. Even in New York, where the Knicks have perfected despair into an art form, Bayern’s annual summer pop-up store draws lines longer than the visa queue at JFK. The message is clear: we may not run your central bank, but we can still own your Saturday night.

The club’s balance sheet is the only German document more closely studied than the Grundgesetz. Revenue streams flow from four continents like Alpine meltwater, irrigating a wage bill that could bankroll a medium-sized Balkan military. Adidas, Allianz, Audi—three A’s that grade themselves—supply the cash, while Qatar Airways keeps the sleeve sponsorship, because nothing says “Mia san mia” like a Gulf carrier whose hub airport was built by workers who definitely had dental. Every euro is laundered through the moral high ground of “50+1 fan ownership,” a rule so porous it might as well be a colander at a fondue party.

Of course, success breeds resentment. The Bundesliga has become a one-team Bildungsroman in which everyone else plays the village idiot. Rivals accuse Bayern of “financial doping,” a phrase coined by executives who sip cortados in glass offices paid for by hedge-fund largesse. Meanwhile, European heavyweights—Real Madrid, Manchester United, PSG—plot super-league breakaways like teenagers sneaking out past curfew, only to find Bayern already parked at the rendezvous point with the engine running. The Bavarians play the long game because they can: their stadium debt was paid off faster than a Berlin start-up burns seed capital.

And yet, for all the Teutonic efficiency, there is something almost touching—one might say human—about the way Bayern still pretends to be a family club. Players bike to training past beer gardens where septuagenarians in lederhosen debate whether Jamal Musiala’s dribbling is “more Garrincha or more Messi, but with Wi-Fi.” Every so often the club sacks a coach and leaks the severance figure, and the city reacts like a Lutheran parish hearing the pastor bought a sports car. The outrage lasts exactly 72 hours, after which a new coach wins 5-0 and all is forgiven—proof that redemption, like commuter trains, runs on schedule.

Tonight the Champions League anthem will blare across six time zones. Somewhere in Shanghai, a student skips econ class to stream the match; in Buenos Aires, a taxi driver hums the melody while dodging potholes; in Brussels, EU interns place bets on how many passes Manuel Neuer will make outside his own box before the inevitable heart attack. Bayern will probably win, because that is what empires do until entropy or oil money catches up.

But for now, the lights stay red, the goals keep coming, and the world keeps watching—half in admiration, half in dread—because if modernity has taught us anything, it is that hegemony is more palatable when delivered via football rather than panzer. And as long as the beer stays cold and the VAR decisions go their way, Bayern Munich will remain the last empire you can sing about without getting banned from polite society. Prost.