Bayern Munich president Herbert Hainer looks back at 2022

FC Bayern president Herbert Hainer looked back on 2022 in a wide-ranging interview for FCBayern.com — framing the year from a Bayern Munich perspective in a set of four catchphrases: joy, satisfaction, excitement, and hope.

“First and foremost, ‘joy’, because the fans were able to return to the venues and we’re experiencing sport together again with all its emotions,” Hainer said. “Then ‘satisfaction’, because in these fast-moving times I often don’t take enough time to appreciate and value things enough. FC Bayern, for example, won their tenth consecutive title this year - a historic achievement.

“My third catchword is ‘excitement’, which I use in reference to the development in women’s football: It was definitely the year of women’s football. But if you leave aside sport and FC Bayern as a whole, you would unfortunately have to choose a vocabulary for 2022 that is rather worrying. Therefore, I would like to add a fourth word to your question for 2023: ‘hope’. Hope for a better, peaceful future.”

It was certainly a much better sporting year for the Bavarians than it maybe was for the rest of the world, and Hainer sought to celebrate with an appropriate nod to those other trials and tribulations, some of which intersected notably with the sporting world.

But what an achievement it was on the field, too: for the landmark-planting Bayern men’s footballers to Germany’s EURO runner-ups in the women’s game.

Hope every one of you had a nice 2022, and here’s to a better and brighter 2023! In the meantime, let’s take a brief journey back at some of the year’s highlights!