Introduction of the Bundesliga

The Reichsliga before 1933 Germany introduced a national championship in 1903 which, for the first 60 years, was played in a knockout format, whereby the top clubs of the regional football championships would qualify for the finals. The season annually culminated in a final, of which VfB Leipzig's 7–2 win over Deutscher FC Prag in 1903 was the first while Borussia Dortmund's 1963 victory over 1. FC Köln was to be the last. Quite early on in the history of German football, attempts were made to form a single-division national league to replace the multitude of regional top-level leagues. The driving force behind this was the idea of having a league which would include only the best teams in the country, contrary to the original system where strong clubs would play together with weaker ones in small local competitions and would only be truly challenged at the German finals round. West Germany's surprise victory at the 1954 FIFA World Cup led the team's coach, Sepp Herberger, to demand a national league once more. Herberger had already been a driving force of this move in the late 1930s. Ironically, his very success in Switzerland in 1954 spoke against him, with opposition to the league claiming that the current system was the reason for Germany's success in the first place. Herberger found support for his plans in Hermann Neuberger, at the time a DFB official and later to become its chairman, and Franz Kremer, chairman of the 1. FC Köln. Kremer became the voice of the powerful clubs in the West, raising the issue at every annual convention of the German association. In 1957, a twelve-men commission was formed to investigate the Bundesliga question, in April 1958 a special conference of the DFB declined the introduction of the league once more. In 1960, the football association of the Saarland, Neuberger's home region, demanded a reduction of top-level clubs without clearly mentioning the word Bundesliga, a step that was approved but its execution procrastinated. Approval Disillusioned with the slow process of implementing this reduction, the clubs from the West once more raised a motion, to introduce the Bundesliga in 1963, which was approved. Germany's poor performance at the 1962 FIFA World Cup greatly helped the cause, like it did in 1938. On 28 July 1962, at the annual convention of the DFB in the Westfalenhalle, Dortmund, at 17:45, the introduction of the Bundesliga was officially approved with 103 votes for the league and 26 against. Parallel to this, new guidelines for professionalism were approved, too, raising the permissible monthly income to DM 1,200, including bonuses. For certain, specially gifted players, exceptions could be applied for and granted to pay them more. In particular, 1. FC Nürnberg, which had been a strong opposing force to the Bundesliga, was ironically the first to apply for this exception for 12 of its players. On 24 August 1963, the first round of the new Bundesliga was played, enthusiastically welcomed as "finals atmosphere every weekend" by kicker Sportmagazin. ==The qualifying process for the Bundesliga==

Qualifying system The DFB received 46 applications from clubs from the five Oberligen to fill the 16 available spots in the new league, which had to be submitted by 1 December 1962. Clubs from the sixth German Oberliga, the highest league in East Germany, could not and would not have been permitted to apply. Those would join the Bundesliga only after the German reunion, in 1991. An additional condition that was laid down was that no city could be represented by more than one club. Points table: Oberliga West • Oberliga West: All Oberliga West clubs except TSV Marl-Hüls applied for Bundesliga membership. Borussia Dortmund, 1. FC Köln and FC Schalke 04 qualified early. Meidericher SV and Preußen Münster qualified even though both clubs had less points than Alemannia Aachen. Aachen finished fifth, Meidericher SV came in fourth and Preußen Münster earned a third-place finish in 1962–63. Points table: Oberliga Berlin • Oberliga Berlin: Only three clubs applied for the one available spot, Hertha BSC Berlin qualified early. Points table: Oberliga Süd • Oberliga Süd: Of the thirteen clubs from this league applying, the 1. FC Nürnberg and Eintracht Frankfurt qualified early. Karlsruher SC and VfB Stuttgart held third and fourth place in the overall points ranking. Kickers Offenbach and FC Bayern Munich missed out to TSV 1860 Munich due to the latter winning the league in 1962–63 even though 1860 were 153 points behind Offenbach and 59 behind FC Bayern. Points table: Oberliga Südwest • Oberliga Südwest: Of the seven clubs from the league applying, the 1. FC Saarbrücken qualified early even though FK Pirmasens and Borussia Neunkirchen were less than ten points behind in the overall ranking and finished better in 1962–63. The rumour persists that Saarbrücken was chosen because it was from the home state of the later DFB chairman Hermann Neuberger (chairman from 1975 to 1992), the Saarland, a very influential figure in German football. The DFB justified the choice of the 1. FCS with the fact that the club had a superior infrastructure to the other two. The 1. FC Kaiserslautern also qualified. Points table: Key • ‡ Denotes directly qualified league champion. ==Changes to the league system==

The changes to the league system mainly affected the first tier, where the number of leagues was reduced from five to one. The second tier mainly experienced an influx of former Oberliga clubs that failed to gain entry to the Bundesliga or had not applied in the first place. The South, West and Southwest saw their 2nd Oberligas simply renamed to Regionalliga. In Berlin and the North, where there had not been a 2nd Oberliga, Regionalligas were formed. Especially for the North, that meant that the second tier was now formed of only one league instead of five. The third tier in turn experienced an influx of former 2nd Oberliga teams that failed to make the cut for the Regionalligas. In Bavaria and the Rhineland, the Amateurliga, which had operated in two regional division, merged into a single division. The Northern Amateurligas, formerly on the second tier, now slipped to the third, as happened in Berlin. The league system 1962–63 The top three divisions of the league system in the last season before the introduction of the Bundesliga: The league system 1963–64 The top three divisions of the league system in the season after the introduction of the Bundesliga: ==Aftermath==

After financial irregularities in the 1964–65 season, Hertha BSC Berlin were relegated despite not having finished in a relegation spot. Wishing to continue the league's presence in Berlin, the DFB elevated third-placed Regionalliga side Tasmania 1900 Berlin to the Bundesliga without the side actually having qualified and thereby enlarging the league to 18 teams almost by accident, a format it continued from then on except for one season. In 1991, 28 years after its interception, the Bundesliga finally became a league for all of Germany. After the German reunion, two clubs from the east, FC Hansa Rostock and Dynamo Dresden joined the league for the 1991–92 season and caused a one-off expansion of the league to 20 teams. The 58 top-level Oberliga clubs from 1962 to 1963 that were not selected for the Bundesliga were mostly grouped in the new Regionalligas. Only in Berlin did the bottom two teams, Viktoria 89 Berlin and SC Tegel have to drop from the first to the third tier, while in the Southwest Eintracht Kreuznach also found itself dropping to the Amateurliga. In 1974 another step was taken to professionalise German football when the 2. Bundesliga was established. ==References==