German cartel office approves 50+1 rule after 8-year review but orders Bundesliga to fix three problem areas

Cartel office closes eight-year procedure

Germany's Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) concluded its procedure on the 50+1 rule on 12 August 2026, finding no fundamental antitrust objections. The review, which the Bundesliga itself had requested eight years earlier, examined whether the rule that prevents investors from acquiring voting majorities in clubs' professional football companies unlawfully restricts competition. Andreas Mundt, president of the cartel office, stated clearly that the authority would not open any prohibition proceedings.

“We are not conducting proceedings to prohibit the 50+1 rule, and we are not initiating any now.”

The cartel office considers the restriction permissible because it ensures club members have a say and the parent club shapes the professional entity. However, the rule must be applied consistently and without distinction, the authority stressed, and three specific problem areas were identified.

Three problem areas flagged

The first concerns RB Leipzig. The cartel office called for fan co-determination and open access to club membership, widely interpreted as a pointed reference to the Saxony club, whose registered association currently has only 23 voting members. RB Leipzig responded that the club and league are in constant and good exchange and that it looks forward to further developments calmly and constructively.

The second area involves the so-called Förderausnahmen, or sponsor exceptions, granted to Bayer Leverkusen (since 1999) and VfL Wolfsburg (since 2001) because their corporate backers, Bayer and Volkswagen, have financed the clubs for decades. The cartel office found the league's proposal to grant mother clubs certain veto and participation rights insufficient to make the rulebook unassailable. The authority recommended that the sponsor exceptions be abolished prospectively and that Bestandsschutz be tied to an obligation to return the majority stake to the respective club within a reasonable transition period. In June 2025, the cartel office had already demanded improvements, citing new jurisprudence from the European Court of Justice that made permanent Bestandsschutz for clubs with existing sponsor exceptions no longer appear possible under the proposed conditions.

The third problem area is Hannover 96, where managing director Martin Kind, himself one of the largest external investors, voted differently in a DFL ballot than the club had instructed.

Clubs and league must now find solutions

The Bundesliga umbrella organisation said it now wants to work with all 36 clubs of the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga on a solidarische Lösung, or solidarity-based solution, to improve the legal certainty of the rule. The league presidency welcomed the fact that the cartel office raised no fundamental concerns.

“It is a significant step that the Bundeskartellamt in its final assessment raises no fundamental objections to the rule. It is now a matter of finding solutions within the league association with all 36 clubs of the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga.”

TSG Hoffenheim, where SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp had held the majority in the football operating company since 2015, returned to a regular 50+1 structure at the end of 2023, the only sponsor-exception club to have done so. How the Bundesliga handles the cartel office's guidance lies in its own responsibility, Mundt said.