Bayern Munich has established a cooperation with LAFC. It is not their first in the region

FC Bayern Munich has announced a partnership with a club from America’s top soccer league, MLS. This is not a report from 2018 informing about the Bavarian big club’s merger with FC Dallas, but brand new information about the partnership with the current MLS Cup holder, LAFC, Los Angeles Football Club. On what basis will the merger stand? And do we know what this news means for Dallas FC?

“FC Bayern will expand its youth development with Los Angeles Football Club,” announced Bayern Munich Chairman Oliver Kahn. “A partnership of this magnitude is the next step in our development as a club,” LAFC general manager John Thorrington added from the other side.

With these words, the two officials confirmed the mutual connection. According to the official statement, they have jointly founded the “Red&Gold Football” company, referring to the colours of both clubs (red = red, Bayern Munich & gold = gold, LAFC).

The company is to be based in Munich. Each of the clubs will own a 50% stake in the new company. The names of the board members will be made public.

“We see the partnership with LAFC as an opportunity to strengthen FC Bayern against the best clubs in Europe and the Bundesliga. The fact that most of the 2026 World Cup will be held in the USA, where we already have an office in New York, makes the Los Angeles location even more attractive,” explains Kahn of the move, recalling that Bayern Munich opened an office in New York (2017), and also in Shanghai (2017) and Bangkok (2022).

As part of this globalization effort, Bayern Munich also partnered with another MLS club, FC Dallas, in 2018. The latter focused on developing young talent and actually looked beneficial at first, with Chris Richards (now Crystal Palace) moving from Dallas to Munich very early on.

However, the impending complications in negotiating potential transfers of other talent from the Texas club’s production, along with a pandemic making foreign tours impossible, paralyzed the collaboration.

No official information about the future of the collaboration has been released at this time. According to Manuel Veth, a reporter who is close to both Bayern Munich and the entire MLS, Bayern Munich has been looking for a new partner in the region for quite some time, as there was not full satisfaction on either side with the current collaboration with FC Dallas.

The partnership with LAFC does not have to be purely one-sided. The words of FC Bayern Munich’s sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic suggest that the option of ‘sending players from the Bavarian academy for experience overseas’ is also in play:: “In the future, we will be able to offer our young players … a training path that is even better adapted to them, and thus a better transition to our professional teams and professional football.”

Bayern Munich completed the construction of its Campus in 2017, from which it hopes to nurture players for the first team in the future. Focusing on the continued scouting of young talent and their development, Salihamidzic further confirms, ” our Campus … remains at the heart of FC Bayern’s youth work.“

Bayern also has positive experience with scouting overseas, having brought in Alphonso Davies from Vancouver, a club playing in the MLS, in January 2019. Now, der Rekordmeister is getting an interesting partner in the region to continue the trend he has set.

Los Angeles FC is a fast-growing club. Founded in 2014 and a member of MLS since the 2018 season, the club has already played the CONCACAF Champions League final in 2020 and dominated the MLS Cup last season. Among others, with Gareth Bale and Giorgio Chiellini in its ranks.

FC Bayern’s networking may not end with the LAFC connection. Like a new partner in MLS, there has been speculation about an ally on European soil, in countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, or even Austria, where players from Bayern’s youth categories, or from their second team for example, could head on loan.

One of the sentences in the official announcement of the relationship with the United States club gives room for speculation: “The aim of the cooperation is to train international talents also in cooperation with partner clubs for their own teams and for professional football.”

Sources: FC Bayern Munich, LAFC, Manuel Veth – Twitter