History of German Football - The 1980s

The 1980s

The 1980s were a rather bleak decade for the Bundesliga. There was a general decline in attendance throughout the league: in the 1977–78 season average attendance for a Bundesliga match was over 26,000 — the best since 1964–65. By 1985–86 that figure bottomed out at just 17,600 spectators per game. The country's football was also affected by the general European problem of hooliganism and the appearance of neo-Nazi fan groups. The German domestic game became a graceless, rough-edged, brute physical contest devoid of the kinds of star players fans had enjoyed watching in earlier decades. The best German players were regularly lured south to play in Serie A by cash-rich Italian clubs. Bayern Munich's domination of the Bundesliga became numbingly repetitive as they took six of ten titles in the 1980s.

But by the end of the decade the stage was set for some fundamental changes to the Bundesliga. The league signed its first rich television contract and German re-unification and the subsequent merger of the football leagues of East and West Germany was on the horizon.