Former Bayern Munich star Michael Ballack was recently asked about Bayern Munich\u2019s failed pursuits of Florian Wirtz (Liverpool) and Nick Woltemade (Newcastle United).<\/p>\n
The 48-year-old did not pull any punches.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, English clubs pay insane amounts. But even for Wirtz, Bayern were prepared to put together a package worth up to \u20ac100 million. And as for Nick Woltemade: That\u2019s a different case. Bayern has a financial budget. The club has excelled for decades by staying out of debt and growing big. That\u2019s why I understand why Bayern decided not to pay more than \u20ac55 million for Woltemade. Because the player wasn\u2019t worth more to them. But fundamentally, I\u2019m concerned about something else,\u201d Ballack told Sport Bild<\/a>. \u201cLet\u2019s take Wirtz as an example: Does it make sense for him and his development to play in the Bundesliga for Bayern for another two or three years? Of course, he wins championships there.<\/p>\n \u201cBut is the Bundesliga still a challenge for him at the highest level? No, because the Bundesliga was overtaken by the Premier League years ago. That\u2019s the reality. That\u2019s why it\u2019s generally no longer as attractive for the absolute top players. That\u2019s why changes are needed.\u201d<\/p>\n Ballack has a point, but maybe did not strike all the right chords in making it. Neither Wirtz, nor Woltemade dominated the Bundesliga, so it is not as if either would have been held back developmentally by staying in Germany. Where Ballack is correct, though, is about the \u201cinsane\u201d money available in the Premier League to both players and clubs.<\/p>\n As the years go on, it will not only be more difficult for the Bundesliga to retain its talent, but also compete in the open market on transfers. Ballack is absolutely correct in saying that changes are needed\u2026but, what can be done?<\/p>\n Officials in leagues like the Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue1 need to figure that out\u2026and quickly.<\/p>\n Bayern Munich is back in action this week and a tough slate of games lies ahead. Before we tackle all of that, though, there is much to unpack from Germany\u2019s international break and the explosive performance from Uli Hoene\u00df on SPORT1-Doppelpass over the weekend.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s get into all of that more on this edition of the Bavarian Podcast Works Show! This is what we have on tap:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Bayern Munich star Michael Ballack was recently asked about Bayern Munich\u2019s failed pursuits of Florian Wirtz (Liverpool)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[57079,2506,403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-147609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-bayern-munich-transfer-news-and-rumors","9":"tag-bayern-munich-alumni","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}