Bundesliga "development league" for English clubs claims Leverkusen CEO

Stuart Hodge

• Updated: 21 Oct 2021 11:36 CDT
• 3 min read

Bayer Leverkusen CEO Fernando Carro claims the financial power of the Premier League is reducing the Bundesliga to “development league” status.

The inequality of the television rights deals between the English top flight and the other major leagues across Europe is causing the market to become lop-sided according to Carro.

The Spaniard has watched as English sides pay top dollar to attract the best talents from all but the very biggest teams in the other leagues.

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“Of course, we are suffering from it,” Carro said, speaking to The Guardian.

“We tried to buy a player in the summer and in the end a promoted side from the Premier League was able to pay more money and a higher salary than us, a top four side in Germany.

“The Premier League has so much more money and resources than any other country. This is not good for us. Definitely not.

Premier League dwarves the competition

“Even Borussia Dortmund have to sell players to the Premier League. The only club that can compete at the moment from the Bundesliga is Bayern Munich.

“English clubs pay the transfers, we get the money, but then that just means the entire Bundesliga is like a development league for the Premier League.”

The Premier League broadcasting deal is worth over €11 billion across three years meaning that on average each EPL club receives €146 million per season, so the only answer for even a big club like Leverkusen is to continue to sell their best assets – as they have done with the likes of Kai Havertz, Bernd Leno and Leon Bailey in recent times, to the tune of nearly $170m over the last five years.

He said: “If you look at Spain, they make €860m from overseas TV rights and we only make around €200m.

“Even if we could make, say, €300m more from overseas rights, we would still not bridge the gap with the Premier League. The gap is still much higher. So we could double or triple our TV income and we still wouldn’t close the gap.”