Herbert Hainer: 'Munich is a global sports city with heart'

Unique events deserve unique settings – in this case, from SAP Garden to the Stone Hall at Nymphenburg Palace. Thursday was dedicated to Munich’s bid for the 2036, 2040 or 2044 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Representatives from politics, society and sport explained how the Bavarian capital plans to organise this major event. President Herbert Hainer once again reaffirmed the support of the German champions: “We at FC Bayern, with our more than 432,500 members worldwide, know how strongly sports bring people together – across borders, generations and social backgrounds.” That is why the club supports “hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in our home city: Munich is not just bidding for a few weeks of sports, but for an impact that will last for decades – both internally and externally.” And one thing is clear, said Hainer in the presence of Minister-President Markus Söder, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, Mayor Dominik Krause and Duke Franz of Bavaria: “Munich is not only a cosmopolitan city with a heart, but also a global sports city with a heart.”

In addition to Olympians such as long-time FC Bayern Basketball pro and current FCB youth coach Danilo Barthel, Felix Neureuther (alpine skiing), Alexandra Burghardt (sprint and bobsled), Sideris Tasiadis (canoeing), gold medalist Jessica von Bredow-Werndl (dressage), and Michael Teuber (cycling) as a representative of the Paralympic Games, talented young athletes like Bohan from FC Bayern’s table tennis division were also in attendance. In front of around 200 invited guests, Bohan took part in a discussion with Hainer and shared how he discovered his passion for sports: while watching table tennis on TV during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he started playing on a table in the playground, where he was discovered by an FCB coach – and is now training towards his big dream of one day competing in the Olympics himself. This is how sports should inspire: inspiration leads to getting active, developing oneself and and pursuing goals. 

Munich’s sustainable concept is based on an Olympics of short distances: more than 90 percent of the venues are to be located within a 30km radius. The Olympic and Paralympic Village will once again be designed so that it can be used as an accessible residential area even after the major event, under the guiding principle of a “generations neighbourhood”. The general consensus among city and state officials is that this would result in lower overall costs and represent an investment in the city’s future.

“In 1972, as a young lad, I sold drinks at the Olympic Stadium in Munich because the Olympics have always fascinated me,” Hainer said. “To this day, on my travels – formerly as CEO of adidas  and now as president of FC Bayern – I sense that when people around the world think of Germany, they think of Bavaria and Munich. And that also has to do with sports. Because here, sports aren’t just a backdrop, but part of our identity.” The FCB president continued: “The Olympic legacy lives on here in an exemplary way: under the tent-like roof of a world-famous stadium, and in every encounter among people from all over the world who still live today in the 1972 Olympic Village.” His older brother once had an apartment there; he often visited him, and so he can say from personal experience: “The Olympic ideal in Munich is not built on visions without substance, but on proven sustainability, as well as a unique tradition and a firmly anchored sense of community.”