Rummenigge praises Costa as Bayern remain world's biggest club
FC Bayern München executive board chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge lauded the club’s summer signings at the record champions’ Annual General Meeting on Friday evening, describing the present as “perhaps the best period in Bayern’s 115-year history”.
Bundesliga the priority
“Headlines are being written on the pitch,” the 60-year-old told the 2,590 members present. “Douglas Costa for example has surprised plenty of people. All the summer signings have strengthened the squad, however, and have fit in really well to an already-excellent side.”
Rummenigge also waxed lyrical about the side’s record-breaking start to the season, describing the 3-1 DFB Cup second-round victory at VfL Wolfsburg as “perfect. It was the best first-half I’ve ever seen from any Bayern team,” he said. “But we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that anything other than winning the treble is a failure.”
Clinching the Bundesliga, however, remains the priority for Pep Guardiola’s side. “It’s the most honest title to win. It might sometimes look easy, but it really isn’t. It’s really difficult. We all have very fond memories of winning the treble in 2013: they were great moments and of course it would be brilliant if we could achieve that again, but we need to go about our business quietly, modestly and with a certain humility. Then maybe it’ll be possible again.”
Biggest club in the world
Bayern also remained the biggest club in the world in terms of members, it was confirmed, with 270,329 people part of the club – an increase on 2013/14 (251,315). “I proudly informed you last year that we were now the biggest sports club in the world. We still are,” said club President Karl Hopfner.
“We’re doing fantastically in all competitions,” added Rummenigge. “If someone had told me a few years ago that we would be mentioned in the same breath as Real Madrid and Barcelona, I wouldn’t have believed them!”
Elsewhere at the AGM, deputy chairman and finance director Jan-Christian Dreesen described the record champions as being at the “top level”, announcing excellent results from the financial year 2014/15, with profit before and after tax rising to a record €31.4 and €23.8 million respectively.
