Good to Know
RB Leipzig is a football club controlled by the Austrian Red Bull corporation. That is well known. How the fizzy drinks billionaire cunningly exploited loopholes in the DFB and DFL regulations to build a Bundesliga contender from scratch — that is less well known.
On the path to the Bundesliga, the brains behind the RBL coup cleverly circumnavigated the gaps in the DFB and DFL rulebook. The 50+1 rule, which was supposed to prevent investors from taking majority control of a club, was rendered toothless: RB Leipzig technically has only 21 members with voting rights — all of them Red Bull employees or associates. Joining as a regular member? Virtually impossible.
Just days before the second-division licence was granted, RB owner Dietrich "Didi" Mateschitz made one final concession to the German football authorities: the word "Red Bull" disappeared from the club name and was replaced by "RasenBallsport" — lawnball sport. The bull logo stayed, the colours stayed, the money stayed. Only the name changed.
RB Leipzig is the copy and RB Salzburg the original, with which the fizzy drinks billionaire set out to dominate football in the German-speaking world. Salzburg serves as the blueprint, the development lab and the feeder club. Players are shuttled between the two sister clubs as needed — a system that gives Leipzig a scouting and development pipeline most Bundesliga rivals can only dream of.
That is how it is portrayed in the fan curves of unsuccessful traditional clubs and in the tradition-romanticising German media. The reality is more nuanced. RB Leipzig has invested heavily in youth development, infrastructure and coaching — and has produced a playing style that is admired across Europe.
Red Bull's footballing philosophy is said to be set in stone, and every single coach, every single employee must adopt it. The system is built on high pressing, rapid transitions and an extreme work ethic. The Red Bull philosophy: "We want to play the most spectacular and fastest football in all of Europe."
This playing system is to be perfected through a high-tech complex with six football pitches, an indoor hall, a weights room, video analysis suites and a sports science department — all housed at the Cottaweg training ground in Leipzig.
The athletics room — with a special sprint training device where players strap belts around their hips, connected via cables to a motorised resistance machine. The sprints are analysed in real time and the data fed directly to the coaching staff.
The high-tech weights room with video workout — directly beside a running track stand 13 workstations for strength training. Players can follow individual exercise programmes on video screens. Every repetition is monitored and recorded.