How the Bundesliga became reliant on French players
The German top-flight has spent more money on players from Ligue 1 than any other league in the world over the past 10 years. Why is that?
Had the 2022/23 Bundesliga season been decided by goals scored by German players, Bayern Munich would have come out on top. That isn’t particularly surprising. Nor is the fact that Borussia Dortmund would have finished comfortably in second place. And as if that wasn’t remarkably unremarkable enough, just consider this third and final fact: Stuttgart and Hoffenheim would have been relegated.
Indeed, not a lot would have changed at either end of the league table had the DFL decided on the eve of last season to ban foreign players. However, when we look at the rest of the table it does become abundantly clear which clubs have relied on imports from outside of Germany.
For example, while Bayern and Dortmund remain top of the table, RB Leipzig drop dramatically down to thirteenth. And alongside them are Bayer Leverkusen in fourteenth, Mainz in fifteenth and Eintracht Frankfurt staring the relegation play-off directly in the eyes. Throw a tenth-placed Freiburg into that mix and you have five of Germany’s top eight clubs in complete disarray without foreign players.
While the Bundesliga is undoubtedly a top European league that has attracted interest from across the world, there’s little doubt that when we use the word “foreign” in this context we almost certainly mean “French”. Whether it be Randal Kolo Muani, Moussa Diaby, Christopher Nkunku, Amine Adli or even Ludovic Ajorque, these clubs and their goalscorers sum up an intriguing trend that has been gathering pace in the Bundesliga: a reliance on French players.
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