Uli Hoeneß on what Bayern Munich means to him: “I owe everything to FC Bayern, in every respect.” | OneFootball

“I would talk about a very eventful time with two world wars and our Jewish president Kurt Landauer, who had to leave the country after our first German championship in 1932. About the time when football became more professional with the founding of the Bundesliga in 1963, but FC Bayern initially played no role until after promotion two years later. I can tell you more about 1970, when Paul Breitner and I came to FC Bayern thanks to Udo Lattek. We actually wanted to go to 1860 Munich, whose managing director Mayerböck, strangely enough, drove through Ulm every two weeks and called my parents for coffee. I had 15 or 16 offers from the Bundesliga, but FC Bayern was not one of them. Lattek became coach, manager Robert Schwan came by, we definitely didn’t want to sign anything that day. After two hours he asked if we had a typewriter and dictated the terms to my mother. 1200 marks basic salary, 20,000 marks signing-on bonus, plus the usual match bonuses.”

“The people involved, the outstanding personalities that this club has produced: It started with Sepp Maier, Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Katsche Schwarzenbeck, Bulle Roth, Paul Breitner, later Kalle Rummenigge, Klaus Augenthaler, Lothar Matthäus, my brother Dieter and up to the present day, you can’t forget anyone. All great personalities who were successful on the pitch and entertained people.”

“I didn’t really like it at first, but it became clear to me that FC Bayern has been at the heart of society since then: discos, nightlife, everything was suddenly there. People obviously liked it a lot because they felt entertained. Also in this time: personalities like Lothar Matthäus, Jürgen Klinsmann, Mario Basler, Stefan Effenberg, Giovane Elber and, and, and. This entertainment factor has given FC Bayern a status that extends far beyond the pitch of the Olympic Stadium.”

“Franz Beckenbauer number one, Gerd Müller number two, both at a similar level, and Sepp Maier. Later, Kalle Rummenigge and Paul Breiter. Now you’re hiding your light under a bushel. As a player, I won everything, but I wasn’t there long enough.”

“I am certainly one of the three or four people who have had the greatest influence on the club, especially after his career. But I see us as us. I find it interesting: As long as we played and trained with and against each other, there was no great friendship, which only developed later. When my generation came in 1970, with Paul, Rainer Zobel and Edgar Schneider next to me, all with big mouths, we were not greeted with a big hello. I played with shin guards in training, but not in games. That was when things got serious, the established players didn’t want to let anyone take the butter off their bread. Gerd couldn’t lose, Udo Lattek had to train until the old guys won.”

“That’s for others to judge, but I’m proud to be part of this development. I do believe that I gave a lot of impetus, in the team area, but above all in the economic area. I was a key factor in the construction of the Allianz Arena, a little less in the youth performance center, but now more in the SAP Garden. A gem, even if the costs got out of hand.”

“The Allianz Arena, a sticking point. The Olympic Stadium was OK, but with a view to developments in society, we had to do something. People used to sit on the back straight in the snow at minus ten degrees, so you thought twice about going. Today we are always sold out, in the Olympic Stadium we had an average of 35,000 spectators in the big time. That has more than doubled, even though it has become more expensive. But it is more comfortable, you don’t freeze as much. I fought like a lion for this stadium, it has brought us further. The big clubs all have a stadium, everyone knows these big names: Bernabeu, Nou Camp, Old Trafford, Anfield Road. The Allianz Arena has long been one of them. It wasn’t my decision, but another growth factor was the opening of the borders in 1989, which led to a sharp increase in membership numbers.”

“I would never do anything that would land me in prison again, that’s a terrible thing. Losing is part of football, making bad decisions is part of life. I have certainly done a lot of things wrong. But my credo has always been: you can make mistakes, just not twice. I tried that. I was usually willing to admit mistakes and do better.”

“I can say that I am at peace with myself, and the most important point of all: I owe everything to FC Bayern, in every respect. I drove to my first training session in July 1970, and caused an accident in Schwabing because I was so nervous that I drove through a red light. Today I can be a little proud of what has come of it. In addition, I am very lucky to have a family that works perfectly. It was important to me that we managed a smooth succession in our sausage factory, which is not a given in German craftsmanship. For me, that was always a model of how I imagined the transition at FC Bayern, where it didn’t go so well at first because we didn’t have much patience.”

“You could have had that feeling, but for that to happen, a club would have had to put us under pressure for three, four, five years. That didn’t happen. If Leverkusen won the championship two or three times in a row, we would have to worry.”

“Before we sold Kalle Rummenigge to Inter Milan in 1984, we weren’t doing so well financially. We got rid of that for good and had no more debts. I remember 2007, when we only made it to the UEFA Cup and invested in Luca Toni, Franck Ribery, Miro Klose and others in one summer. At a supervisory board meeting, a member said: That’s over 100 million euros! Franz was president and countered: Do you know that FC Bayern is a football club and not a bank? That was the beginning of a new era with more risk and higher expenses. But we were able to sort it out with our fixed-term deposit account.”

“I’ve always said that the city of Munich can handle two Bundesliga teams. You don’t have to be an 1860 fan to respect them. But I see few chances of them getting back up there and establishing themselves there. In my opinion, moving out of the Allianz Arena was a mistake and there is no way back now. No fan of the 1960s would go to a stadium that is so red.”

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