Bayern Munich

Bayern Munich, officially Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V., is a German sports club based in Munich. It is best known for its men's professional football team, which competes in the Bundesliga, Germany's top football league. The club is the most successful in German football history and ranks among the most decorated globally, holding a record 35 national league titles—including eleven in a row from 2013 to 2023—and a record 21 DFB-Pokal national cup victories, along with numerous top European honors.

Founded in 1900 by eleven players led by Franz John, Bayern won its first national championship in 1932. However, it was not selected for the newly formed Bundesliga in 1963. Success returned in the mid-to-late 1960s, but the club's peak came in the 1970s under captain Franz Beckenbauer, when it won the European Cup three times in a row (1974–1976). Overall, Bayern has won six European Cup/UEFA Champions League titles, a German record, with the most recent coming in the 2020 final as part of a Treble.

That made Bayern only the second European club to win a Treble twice. The club is one of five teams allowed to keep the European Cup trophy and wear a multiple-winner badge. It has reached the European Cup/UEFA Champions League final 11 times, tied for the second-most appearances, and has 22 semi-final appearances, also second-most. Additionally, Bayern has won one UEFA Cup, one European Cup Winners' Cup, two UEFA Super Cups, two FIFA Club World Cups, and two Intercontinental Cups, making it one of the most successful European clubs internationally and the only German club to have won both international titles.

Bayern players have collected five Ballon d'Or awards, multiple runner-up finishes, two The Best FIFA Men's Player awards, six European Golden Shoes, and three UEFA Men's Player of the Year awards, including UEFA Club Footballer of the Year. The club has had at least one player in eleven consecutive FIFA World Cup finals, from 1986 to 2022. By winning the 2020 FIFA Club World Cup, Bayern became only the second club to achieve a "sextuple"—winning the league, cup, and Champions League in one season, followed by the domestic supercup, UEFA Super Cup, and Club World Cup in the next.

Bayern is one of five clubs to have won all three of UEFA's main club competitions and the only German club to do so. Traditional local rivals include 1860 Munich and 1. FC Nürnberg, while its rivalry with Borussia Dortmund is known as Der Klassiker. Bayern is one of the world's most widely supported football clubs.

As of November 2025, it had over 432,500 official members and 4,425 officially registered fan clubs with more than 328,564 members, making it the largest sports club globally by membership. The club also operates departments for chess, handball, basketball, gymnastics, bowling, table tennis, and senior football, with over 1,500 active members. Since the 2005–06 season, Bayern has played home matches at the Allianz Arena, having previously spent 33 years at Munich's Olympiastadion.

The team's colors are red and white, and its crest features the white and blue flag of Bavaria. Bayern Munich generates the highest revenue of any German sports club and is among the highest-earning football clubs worldwide, recording a record €978.3 million in the 2024–25 season. Bayern Munich was founded by members of the Munich gymnastics club MTV 1879. On 27 February 1900, when MTV 1879 members voted to prevent their footballers from joining the German Football Association (DFB), eleven footballers left the congregation and founded Fußball-Club Bayern München that same evening.

Within months, Bayern achieved high-scoring victories over all local rivals, including a 15–0 win against Nordstern, and reached the semi-finals of the 1900–01 South German championship. Over the following years, the club won several local trophies. In 1910–11, Bayern joined the newly formed "Kreisliga," the first regional Bavarian league, winning it in its debut season. The club did not win it again until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, which halted all German football.

By the end of its first decade, Bayern had its first German national team player, Max Gablonsky. By 1920, membership exceeded 700, making it Munich's largest football club. After the war, Bayern won several regional competitions before claiming its first South German championship in 1926, repeating the feat two years later. Its first national title came in 1932, when coach Richard "Little Dombi" Kohn led the team to a 2–0 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in the final.

The rise of Adolf Hitler ended Bayern's progress. Club president Kurt Landauer and the coach, both Jewish, left the country, and many others were purged. Bayern was taunted as the "Jew's club," while local rival 1860 Munich gained support. After a friendly in Switzerland, some Bayern players greeted Landauer, who was a spectator, leading to continued discrimination.

Despite this, club president Josef Kellner (1938–45) was an NSDAP member and administrator in the Sudetenland. Bayern also suffered under the rule that footballers had to be full amateurs again, prompting gifted young center-forward Oskar Rohr to move to Switzerland.