Football: Dutt warns of ‘greed consuming’ Bundesliga

Inflated transfer fees and salaries are a sign of the greed eating away at football, says VfB Stuttgart boss Robin Dutt, who on Sunday called for restriction measures in the Bundesliga.

Manchester City are reported to be poised to offer a club record of £50 million (69.9m euros, $78.1m) for Wolfsburg’s Kevin de Bruyne in the latest big-money transfer affecting Germany’s top flight.

Their neighbours Manchester United have also been linked to a 100 million euros attempt to sign Bayern Munich’s Thomas Mueller and Dutt says the current trend is hurting football in the home of the world champions.

“Greed is slowly eating away at our football,” Stuttgart’s director of sport Dutt told Sport1.

“It’s no longer a game built on training and exercises in tactics, but has become a game of pure management.

“A young man, such as Kevin de Bruyne for example, is now surrounded by a bunch of people.

“He no longer knows what decisions he’s making.

“We finally need a discussion about a cap for both transfer sums and salaries. At some point the bubble will burst.”

Football is booming in Germany where the Bundesliga has the lowest ticket prices and the highest average attendances of Europe’s five major leagues, but Dutt is not alone in voicing concerns about the esculating costs of transfers and salaries.

The idea of a Bundesliga salary cap is not new and was last debated in 2009, when Schalke led the calls to introduce one, but received a mixed reception and little seems to have changed.

Eintracht Frankfurt’s Germany midfielder Stefan Reinartz, who won the last of his three caps in 2013, told German daily Bild last week that he is in favour of introducing measures so that “salaries don’t escalate”.

But Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, one of his country’s highest paid stars, says it would be “difficult” to introduce in Germany unless other leagues also had the same restrictions.