Bayern Munich Benefit as Bundesliga Suffers from Referee Bias in Hannover Win

One of the most brilliant observations in football history can be attributed to former Germany coach Sepp Herberger: "You know why people go to the stadium? Because they don't know how it ends."

The 1954 World Cup-winning trainer's simple yet revelatory statement has since become a commonly used adage in German football. For example in a 2010 interview with Observer Sport (h/t The Guardian), Bundesliga chief executive Christian Seifert used that quote and the German top flight's fiercely competitive nature as a selling point for the league.

Things have since markedly changed. After a three-year stint that saw different league winners in each season, Borussia Dortmund won back-to-back Bundesliga titles, claiming the title with a then-record 81 points in 2012.

A year later, Bayern Munich roared into top gear, smashing the record in earning 91 points, a record 25 ahead of runners-up BVB. The Bavarians fell just short of their best with 90 last season but clinched the title in record time. And with an 11-point lead over Wolfsburg, they look destined to win a third consecutive title this May. Or, more likely, earlier.

These days, Bayern fans don't go to the Allianz Arena because they don't know whether Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben and company will beat their domestic opponents, but rather by how great a margin it will be. And sadly, their dominance of domestic football is being consolidated by referees.

On Saturday, Hannover played one of their best games of the season. Perhaps seeing Pep Guardiola had selected a weakened side with Franck Ribery, Robert Lewandowski and Bastian Schweinsteiger on the bench and bolstered by the home-field advantage, they thought they might be able to get a positive result.

For their part, Hannover did everything right. They went ahead on 25 minutes and defended very well over the course of the 90. Yet they lost 3-1 through circumstances that had precious little to do with their performance. Bayern equalized in the 28th minute through a direct free-kick that should never have been awarded and took the lead through Thomas Muller after a penalty that should never have been given. The Germany international later added a third, and the status quo was upheld.

This isn't to take anything from Bayern's execution. Alonso's free-kick was outstanding. Muller's penalty was cool and precise and his header was excellent. Yet from the perspective of a Hannover supporter, a repeat of Bayern's recent routs of Hamburg and Paderborn may have been less crippling.

A few early wonder-goals scored under non-dubious circumstances would have been acceptable. But having played so well for 90 minutes, only to have at least a point snatched unfairly and with no fault of their own, Hannover have every reason to feel shortchanged.

The official Bundesliga website's headline after the match made no note of Hannover's effort or any controversy, instead focusing on how Arjen Robben had set the next league record, winning his 100th game in just 126 appearances.

The status quo was upheld, and Bayern's next opponents, Werder Bremen, will wonder whether it's worth putting up a fight against a team that can play reserves and never come close to first gear and still win by more than a goal.

Saturday's result is by no means a one-off. In fact, Alonso's free-kick was eerily reminiscent of a DFB-Pokal matched played just days before, against Eintracht Braunschweig. Bayern were 2-0 winners on the day and were generally much better than their two Bundesliga opponents. Yet it was only after a free-kick that should never have been awarded that they went ahead.

As with Alonso's on Saturday, David Alaba's goal was a thing of beauty and he should not be begrudged for its quality. Still, from the perspective of Braunschweig and their supporters, one can only look at the goal as the next injustice against a lower team. The quality of the resulting goal does not justify the decision to allow it to be converted.

Statisticians will be quick to point out three decisions in two games is more a matter of coincidence than trend, but a study by Stefanie Pohlkamp of the University of Hamburg economics department revealed last June that instances like those of the last week are part of a much greater trend.

Using data over a 15-year period to analyze match-winning decisions like goals and penalties, as well as non-match-winning decisions like bookings, Pohlkamp's 43-page paper found that whether home or away, the most successful clubs during the observation period (Bayern and Dortmund) benefited most from referee's influence.

It's only human nature for a referee to be affected by narrative, to find it harder to make a decision against a favored team, especially in front of tends of thousands of their expecting supporters. But it isn't fair, and sadly, it's pervasive.

More disconcerting is the fact Pohlkamp's data was taken from the beginning of the 1993-94 season until the end of 2007-08, a period of time in which Bayern and Dortmund were dominant at times, but not as they have been in the last few years.

BVB during their back-to-back title runs and especially Bayern since have enjoyed unprecedented dominance of the Bundesliga. Never before have German champions been so expected to win, and that expectation can further influence referees. We've now seen three times in the last week that it indeed can, with the decision for Lewandowski's penalty crossing the line from dubious flat-out ridiculous.

The sad thing is, many Bayern fans will see such calls being made and come to expect them on a regular basis. In fact, many Dortmund supporters were up in arms over some decisions made against their club last fall that from a Freiburg fan's perspective may have been very normal.

The difference was that the BVB faithful had grown used to getting questionable calls in their favor in the previous four seasons or so, and with the club less expected to win, refereeing bias had shifted. Bayern needn't worry about a similar occurrence anytime soon, though, with every factor imaginable pointed in their favor.

It's bad enough that Bayern's €474.2 million revenue in 2013-14 (per Deloitte) was just under double that of the Bundesliga's second-highest earners BVB (€261.5 million) and over 2.2 times that of the third side, Schalke (€213.9 million). It's bad enough that the 75-point barrier that used to guarantee title victory now means losing by "only" 15 points.

It's bad enough that every top German talent, from Manuel Neuer to Mario Gotze to Thomas Muller, is expected to play for Bayern. But for the referees to be on the favorites' side is an avoidable low that makes a league already struggling for relevance as a competition even less desirable to neutrals.

If the Bundesliga is ever to grow its market and land a TV deal like the Premier League's new £5 billion contract, viewers will have to wonder once more how the season will end. Refereeing atrocities like Saturday's need to end.

@Mr_Bundesliga