Women's directorate in focus, appeal to the fans

At the end, a group gathered around Bianca ‘Jay’ Rech and there were still some interested questions about her presentation on the FC Bayern Women's directorate, which was the focus of the subsequent meeting in 2024 of the club's fan dialogue working group. As a special gift, one member had even brought along an autograph card from the 2008/09 season, when the FCB Women's director herself was still on the ball for the Reds. It was a fitting picture. Rech once pulled the strings on the pitch as a midfielder, now she provides impetus as director. The 26 members of the working group present at the meeting on level 5 of the Allianz Arena acknowledged her presentation with a round of applause. The spokesperson for the group, Hansi Gehrlein from the fan club ‘Die 13 Höslwanger’, expressed his thanks for the regular meetings: “This working group is a unique format. It helps us as fans to get to know our FC Bayern even better and to stay in direct dialogue on important topics between the club and fans.”

This time, deputy CEO Michael Diederich was exceptionally unable to attend for personal reasons and sent a separate email to each individual member in advance. He was replaced by CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen, who took part in the discussion on topics relating to visiting the Allianz Arena and was available to answer further questions afterwards. “We’ve had very high-quality meetings in our fan dialogue working group in 2024,” said Diederich, who usually chairs the meetings, summing up the year. “FC Bayern is very happy about this consistently open, trusting and targeted exchange. Together with the fans, we can continuously develop the club through the institutionalised fan dialogue. We would like to thank everyone for their time, commitment and input. We look forward to continuing the dialogue in the coming year.”

Markus Meindl, director of fan and fan club support, also made it clear how important the exchange with its fans and members is to FC Bayern when he gave an overview of this year's regional fan club meetings from South Tyrol to Kiel and looked ahead to the traditional fan club Christmas visits by the players on 15 December. Regional fan club meetings will again be organised again in 2025. The dialogue format has more than proven itself in order to be tangible and approachable as a club and to remain in personal contact with the fan clubs and fan club members. With regard to the Christmas visits, Meindl let it be known that board member for sport Max Eberl made it clear right at the first meeting that he sees these visits as an important part of the club and fan culture. Over 100 applications have been received, planning is in the final phase and details will be announced soon. Meindl also referred to the Annual General Meeting on 8 December in the Rudi-Sedlmayer-Halle (starting at 10.30am), calling on all members in the FC Bayern fan clubs to take part in order to actively shape the future of the club.

Rech's presentation was entitled ‘Masterful role models’ as she vividly illustrated the history from the founding of the women’s section in 1970 to its current status. The management team now has 159 employees and, in addition to the first and second teams, there are also U20, U17 and U15 teams and, since this season, a development squad for talented players aged between 12 and 13. In 2019, all ambitions were summarised in a strategy, and since then development has progressed rapidly under the motto ‘Creating a Movement’. In the past four years alone, FCB Women have been crowned champions three times. Simon Müller, team leader of fan representation at FC Bayern, then presented the developments in fan work in women's football in order to further improve the framework for the continuously increasing number of fans.

At the end of the meeting, Oliver Meßthaler, director of ticket services and security, together with CEO Dreesen, explained various topics relating to the processes at the Allianz Arena. Both appealed to the fans to take the requirements regarding keeping the stairs in the south stand free as emergency exit and rescue routes seriously, otherwise the project to be able to continue offering standing room at UEFA Champions League matches would be jeopardised. “We are dependent on the understanding and support of our fans,” explained Dreesen, “we all want standing room, so we should all do everything we can together to achieve this.” The same also applies to fan tifos, where the legal requirements of the authorities and the fire brigade must be taken into account.

The fact that it is always possible to optimise things together was demonstrated by the problem of how the arrival and departure from the south coach park used to be affected by the taxis. On the initiative of the Allianz Arena management led by managing director Jürgen Muth, an alternative for the taxis has now been found after a test pilot, which will now be permanent. “This is FC Bayern, this is our aspiration, that we find solutions together, with you, with the fans,” said Meindl. “A pilot project will become a permanent fixture that everyone involved can live with.” The joint conclusion was that this would continue in 2025.