FC Augsburg is the efficiency champion of the Bundesliga. No other club used its money so well last season: Augsburg spent almost three million euros for every Bundesliga point; The other 14 clubs that managed to stay in the league and were not relegated to the second division all needed more.
This is evident from the F.A.S. efficiency table, which we are publishing in time for the start of the new Bundesliga season this weekend. Augsburg is known for the Fuggers, the fabulously rich merchant family from the late Middle Ages. FC Augsburg, on the other hand, is one of those Bundesliga clubs in which a financial investor has a lot to say. The American company Global Football Holdings, which also has stakes in clubs in Denmark, Belgium and Portugal, holds 45 percent of the FCA's professional division.
This text comes from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
F.A.S. read now
Whether the legacy of the Fuggers or the influence of the Americans was decisive for the efficiency of Augsburg's football operations can only be guessed at. Maybe it was simply because, after a botched start to the season, the club quickly found a coach in Manuel Baum who made the team much stronger than expected. The degree of efficiency can be quantified. With around 125 million euros for personnel, depreciation and other operating costs, the club was in 15th place in the Bundesliga's "money ranking"; only three clubs had lower funds available. With this comparatively manageable budget, the club achieved 43 points and thus reached 9th place in the final Bundesliga table. The eighth-placed team, Eintracht Frankfurt, spent almost three times as much per point. Incidentally, only relegated Wolfsburg and FC Bayern Munich spent more money per point than Frankfurt, who also became German champions and DFB Cup winners, while Eintracht didn't even qualify for the European Cup.
Among the promoted and relegated teams, VfL Wolfsburg, supported by the Volkswagen Group, was not the only one that stood out and was relegated to the second division with a budget of around 250 million euros. The rise of the outsiders from Elversberg and Paderborn, who each spent less than a million euros per point in the second division, was similarly sensational. Another relegated club, 1. FC Heidenheim, is not included in this edition of the F.A.S. efficiency table because the club has changed its financial year and the available data is therefore not easily comparable. The third promoted team, FC Schalke 04, already reached a spending level in the second division that was definitely suitable for the first division.
A comparison with the previous year is also informative. At that time, Holstein Kiel was the efficiency champion, which was a title of no great value because the Northern Lights only got a few points with little money and were relegated at the end of the season. As now, Bayern had the highest expenditure per point, followed by Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig. This time, the people of Leipzig managed their money much better. TSG Hoffenheim also made a leap forward in this regard. Both clubs spent about the same amount of money overall, but scored significantly more points than in the previous year. In contrast, the euro point ratio deteriorated significantly in Mainz, Freiburg and St. Pauli, among others. In Hamburg, so much so that in the end they were relegated to the second division.
The F.A.S. efficiency table goes back to an idea by the Marburg economic historian Christian Kleinschmidt. It takes into account the key figures from the most recent annual reports of the German professional clubs, as they are always published by the Bundesliga during the summer break.
