The national league is late.
The Bundesliga is now the third largest league in Europe, second only to the Premier League and La Liga. But when the Bundesliga came out, the predecessor of the Premier League, League One, was 75 years old? Old age And La Liga and Serie A played for 34 years. What caused Germany to become the last European country to have a national league? First of all, Germany belongs to a relatively vast country in Europe. In that era of underdeveloped transportation, it was really unrealistic to organize clubs to run around every week, so Germany organized regional leagues according to regions for a long time. Germany's highest level league after World War II? Oberligan? It is divided into five divisions (Berlin, North, West, Southwest and South), and the top two in each division will decide eight teams to participate in the national championship through a complex screening system.
Secondly, Germans have always advocated amateur spirit. Although in the 1950' s, influenced by the professionalization of football in Italy, Switzerland and other neighboring countries, there was a call for establishing a national professional league in West Germany, but most football practitioners and managers did not dare to take the world by storm. In fact, the senior league has long been semi-professional. August 1948, 1, starting the Southern Senior League? Contract player? The system is that players have to sign a contract to play for the club, instead of just filling out a form to join the club as before.
Under the protection of the contract, players can legally get paid, but has the official made it? Salary cap? Limit the player's monthly basic salary to 320 DM, while the competition bonus is limited to 80 DM. Not only that, everyone? Contract player? Everyone needs to have a regular job and need to prove that they are really engaged in this job. Soon after, senior leagues in other districts followed suit.
Some ambitious clubs go beyond the semi-professional limit in various ways. Munster, Prussia, recruited soldiers everywhere and became the first club in the history of German football to form a team through transfer. On the team? Contract player? Lammers is one of them. During her study in Mü nster University, her monthly salary before tax was 400 marks. After finishing his studies, he found a job and became an amateur again. ? Of course, I still continue to get a monthly salary of 400 marks, which is off the table or tax-free. ? Lammers later revealed the secret himself.
? Contract player? The original intention of the system is to retain local stars lured by the high salaries of foreign professional clubs, but the historical trend is irreversible after all. 1948 Porschel, a meritorious player who helped Nuremberg reach the final of the national championship, 1949 moved to Zurich Cao Meng, a Swiss powerhouse, in March, becoming the first German player to go abroad after World War II. Although Porschel returned to China to join Bremen six months later, he has been recruited by the Football Association? Blacklist? , has never been hired by the national team. In the same year, 165438+ 10, Munich 1860 player Janda signed for Florence, becoming the first German player to play in Serie A. 1860 received a transfer fee of 30,000 marks, and Yanda's salary was greatly increased. If we win, my income from one game is equivalent to my income from Munich for one month. ?
Farewell to the lofty amateur age
However, most German players can resist the temptation from outside. Being a professional player means not playing for the national team. Secondly, west Germany relied on professional ethics and public spirit at that time, plus? Marshall plan? The help of writing economic miracles. So, being a professional player violates in a sense? Time spirit? Will be spurned by the country and compatriots.
1954, the West Germany team composed of amateur players performed in the World Cup? Berne miracle? And let the voice against professionalism have a more obvious upper hand. After winning the World Cup, Uwe made his mark in German football. Schiller, Schneilinger, Haller and other young talents are all eyeing the neighboring leagues led by Serie A. At that time, Herberger, the coach of West Germany, was not an advocate of professionalism, but at the same time he had to rack his brains to build a strong national team. In his eyes, the urgent task is to set up a national league to increase players' income and improve their competitive level. There are also Kramer, president of Cologne Club, and newberg, an official from Saarland Football Association, who hold the same view, but their strength is too weak.
1958 world cup, the west Germany team, whose team was still an amateur, went out in a low profile and was finally eliminated by the host Sweden in a controversial semi-final. Despite the failure of defending the title, the performance of West Germany was affirmed at home, but Herberger had mixed feelings, so he was glad of his own? Amateur team? Still on the same level as a professional opponent. It was not until the World Cup in Chile four years later that West Germany finally exposed its amateur disadvantage and was defeated by the former Yugoslavia in the final of14. However, this failure subsequently had a positive impact.
196 1 year, the Western Football Association led by Kramer, President of Cologne, proposed to the German Federal Football Association to establish a national professional league and set up a special committee. The report of the Committee prompted the Advisory Committee of the German Federal Football Association to hold a special meeting on July 28th, 1962, to vote on whether to establish a national league. If the congress is held in the first half of the year, the result may be the opposite. However, after the national team lost, and the amateur king Nuremberg suffered a heavy blow in three months (first eliminated by Benfica 7-3 in two rounds of the Champions League, and then defeated by Cologne 4-0 in the final of the national championship), the wind changed obviously. Finally, 13 1 stands for the establishment of a national alliance.
However, on the issue of professionalism, delegates still hold a wait-and-see attitude. Will the Football Association be the same? Contract player? What is the system improvement? Lizenspieler？ System. Compared with the old system, the new system is still not completely professional, but players no longer need to have a fixed job, and the monthly salary is raised to 500 marks at most. Together with the maximum bonus of 700 marks, the monthly income can reach 1200 marks at most. What about people like Molok and Hans? Schaefer, a world cup champion with outstanding achievements, can earn 2500 marks a month. The system also stipulates that the maximum transfer fee for each player is 50,000 marks, of which 20% belongs to the player.
Who were there in the Bundesliga in the first season?
The next problem to be solved is that 16 club will participate in the new federal league. At present, 46 clubs have submitted applications. After discussion and research, two finalists of the 1963 national championship were automatically selected, namely the champion Dortmund and the runner-up Cologne.
At the beginning of 1963, Kramer, newberg and three other Football Association officials met at the Frankfurt headquarters to study the ownership of the top nine. There is a basic principle that each city can only have one representative. There is no objection to the finalists of six clubs, namely Hamburg and Bremen in the north, Nuremberg in the south, Cologne, Dortmund and Schalke 04 in the west. The controversy began in store 7, and Football Association officials chose Frankfurt, the headquarters of the Football Association. However, compared with the previous record of 10, neighboring offenbach is obviously superior. The eighth place is Saarbrü cken from the northwest of the senior league, but the record is far less than that of Newkirchen, Pierre Jean Makoun and Vorms, and certainly not as good as that of two-time national champion Kaiserslautern. Why does Saarbrü cken stand out? Because this is a club in newberg. Hertha Berlin became the ninth candidate, which was a political choice.
In May 1963, the Football Association announced the ownership of the remaining seven places, namely Medrich (now Duisburg) and Mü nster in the west, Brunswick in the north, Munich 1860 in the south (Bayern lost), Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, and Kaiserslautern in the southwest. There were 13 unsuccessful clubs immediately protesting, including Bayern, but excluding M? nchengladbach. These two clubs dominated German football in the1970s and both became Bundesliga members in 1965.
On the first day of the Bundesliga, he scored 22 goals in 8 games. Love at first sight? To describe this new alliance. As expected, the most professional Cologne won the first Bundesliga championship, and at the same time introduced the genius Ovrat? 10? . ? Our Uwe? Schiller topped the top scorer list with 30 goals, while Munster and Saarbrü cken were relegated and replaced by Hanover and Neukirchen.
The first seven seasons of the Bundesliga were divided, with Cologne, Bremen, Munich 1860, Brunswick, Nuremberg, Bayern Munich and M? ncheng becoming the first defending champion in Bundesliga history with 197 1. It was not until1968+1the match-fixing case in the early 1970s that the Bundesliga finally achieved full professionalism. Starting from 1972, the salary cap was cancelled and the player's income was no longer restricted. In the process of professionalization, German football has experienced two dark clouds and there is a glimmer of hope behind them.