Perhaps Mario Gotze’s move from Borussia Dortmund to Bayern Munich should not have come as much of a surprise when you consider who will be taking over at the Allianz Arena.
Pep Guardiola eventually takes charge at Bayern in the summer and the indications are that he will model the team around his favoured 4-3-3 with a false nine – and Gotze fits the bill to take up that position as he has featured in a similar role before.
And while it may turn out to be a shrewd – yet expensive move at €37 million for the Bavarians – Gotze’s transfer is not good for German football and it is also symptomatic of what is wrong in world football as a whole.
Gotze might have been born in Bavaria but it was Dortmund that he joined aged 8. And it was the West German side that developed him, gave him his debut and introduced his talents to the world.
Borussia Dortmund were building something special, building around players from their own academy such as Marco Reus, Marcel Schmelzer, Kevin Grosskreutz, Nuri Sahin and astute young signings from at home and abroad.
But now it looks like the fruits of that blossom will be picked apart before it has had time to mature into something special.
Elite
Bayern have plenty of previous when it comes to signing their rivals’ German stars but of course no one put a gun to Gotze’s head. Bayern matched the release clause in his contract and the 20-year-old wanted to join his own club’s biggest rivals. Dortmund asked their fans to show him respect until he leaves, and in fairness they did enact their motto ‘Echt Liebe’ (True love) towards a player they considered to be truly one of their own during their historic 4 - 1 win over Real Madrid.
For clubs just below the elite level like the current Dortmund team, the Ajax team of the 90s, the Bayer Leverkusen and Deportivo de la Coruna sides of ten years ago and the Lyon side of the mid-2000s, a glass ceiling exists. They can build squads with potential to succeed but more often than not, the vultures from elite clubs circle and prise away key players.
UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules will not alleviate this problem. In fact it is more likely to maintain the status quo.
You can look around Europe at clubs that maintain world class academies like Ajax, Dortmund, Athletic Bilbao just to name a few. But these clubs know deep down that the products of those academies will go in search of success elsewhere and that’s only if they wait until their 18th birthdays.
The only solution would be to attempt to revive some variation of FIFA’s controversial 6+5 idea which would see all clubs adhere to a requirement to field a certain number of self-produced players (excluding teenagers poached from other academies).
EU laws scuppered the original 6+5 proposals which were aimed at aiding European national teams and in any case it may not have prevented a club like Bayern Munich taking German players from rival clubs as the proposal’s main stipulation was that clubs should field six players eligible for that country’s national team.
But a UEFA or FIFA law that requires clubs to have a certain proportion of academy products in the first team squad would reward clubs like Dortmund and Ajax who invest heavily in youth development and also bring a greater balance between elite clubs and those below that level.
The added bonus would see more local players in the team which would help build a true connection with the fans in a way that is often forgotten now.
