Back in December 10, 2018, Niklas Wildhagen wrote on the dubious partnership between Bayern Munich and Qatar Airways when Bayern club member and fan Johannes Bachmayr waged an attack on the club that caught the interest of the public. The 33-year-old man, who had once called Uli Hoeneß his biggest idol, spoke to the annual general meeting for almost 11 minutes about the things that were going wrong at the club.
Among his criticisms was FCB’s dealing with the Qatari company Qatar Airways: “On the one hand side we attack PSG viciously as a state-sponsored team from Qatar, but we do like to receive the sponsorship money from Qatar.”
At the start of the season, Qatar Airways replaced Lufthansa as Bayern’s travel sponsor, making them a premium partner at the Säbener Strasse. Furthermore, the Bavarian giants play with a company logo on their sleeves this season. The deal is said to last for five years and is estimated to fill the coffers of Bayern with €10 million each year.
Even if there were some untruths in Bachmayr’s attack on Rummenigge and Hoeneß, his speech hit the nail on the head regarding the involvement between Bayern and state-owned company Qatar Airways. Bayern’s bosses have only tightened their relationships with Qatari businesses ever since the club started having its winter training camps in Doha from 2011.
Before the airline joined Bayern as a premium partner, the club was sponsored by Doha’s international airport (owned by Qatar Airways). And whilst Rummenigge stated in 2014 that “we’ve read about certain things going on in Qatar that we don’t like, but that’s the job of politics and not sports or football in particular,” he’s now very much in bed with a company that stands for unacceptable labour practices.
Additionally, the said company is also owned by the state that he himself mildly criticized for human rights violations back in 2014. However, it’s funny how money can make people forget. Rummenigge himself managed to create some uproar when he stated that “football has improved the working conditions of construction workers in Qatar.”
Labour experts have stated that the workers who toiled on World Cup stadiums were now working under better conditions than in the past. However, that doesn’t negate the fact that around 1,500 construction workers still die on building sites every year in the country.
