Special Moments
Hiring the Swabian invalid and the rise to the top
In a grey blazer he stands there. Notebook casually tucked under his arm, 27 years old, enterprising and highly motivated. Not a trace of nerves as he glances upward, letting his gaze wander across the buildings at Säbener Straße 51. He knows all this too well. Too often has he sprinted across the training pitch as a player.
It is May 1, 1979, and the streets are deserted in this historic moment that nobody yet knows is one. Most people are enjoying a late breakfast on Labour Day. Not Uli Hoeneß. He stands before the entrance to FC Bayern’s offices and is not quite sure whether to go in or keep walking.
"Uli! Come in, come in!" Paul Breitner stands laughing in the doorframe, waving the old comrade into the inner sanctum. Hoeneß doesn’t even wonder why Breitner is at the office on this sunny public holiday. A footballer through and through, Breitner famously never missed a training opportunity.
"They asked me again yesterday whether I think you’re too young for the job," Breitner says with a mischievous glance at his former teammate, unable to suppress a grin on the way to Hoeneß’s new office. "It’s not a question of age, but of performance, commitment, ideas. I know what I can do — and I’ll prove it."
Just weeks earlier, these two men had shaken the Bundesliga with a player revolution. One more than the other. "For the first time in the history of German football, a group of players had taken over an entire club," analysed Thomas Hüetlin, author of the 2006 book "Gute Freunde," describing the events of spring 1979.
They rejected the appointment of the dictatorial coach democratically, by a vote of 16-0. If Merkel came, they would boycott Monday morning’s first training session in protest. Their stubbornness prevailed, and Merkel would never arrive. Stunned by such insubordination, president Wilhelm Neudecker resigned the following Monday.
A mutinous squad driving their president to resign? Unbelievable. "With such a captain and such a team, I can no longer work," he told the squad on March 19, 1979. "I wish you and your families all the best. Goodbye." The nation blamed captain Sepp Maier.
Uli Hoeneß was only indirectly involved in the boardroom coup, as he was on loan at 1. FC Nürnberg during the upheaval. Yet the previous year, Hoeneß had already brokered a sponsorship deal between Bayern and tractor manufacturer Magirus-Deutz from his hometown Ulm — on condition that the funds were used exclusively for new signings.
Arriving on the first floor, the two friends stop before the door behind which the uncertain future symbolically awaits. "We need to change the nameplate," Paul Breitner observes. "After you, please! It’s yours, after all." Uli Hoeneß opens the door to his new office for the first time. A desk, a sideboard, a telephone. Ostentatious it is not.
"Twelve million Marks in revenue? Not exactly a lot," he mutters to himself and reaches for the telephone. After just two hours, he leaves his office at Säbener Straße and walks, notebook under his arm, down the stairs. Little can be done today — hardly anyone is in on this public holiday. But other days will come. Many days that will change everything.
He would grow that revenue: from €6.0 million to €750.4 million in the 2018/19 financial year. The pre-tax profit alone at his departure would be more than 15 times the annual turnover he found on his first day. The resignation of Wilhelm Neudecker and the appointment of Uli Hoeneß are two very special moments in the history of FC Bayern München.
7. Autor: Sophie Hargesheimer↩