Everything has come to a standstill on Säbener Straße during the summer break—except for the construction vehicles. Where Harry Kane, Joshua Kimmich, and the rest of the team usually train, excavators and bulldozers are currently rolling around. FC Bayern has launched a major renovation project.
While the Bundesliga and Champions League are on hiatus, the training grounds of Germany’s record champion are undergoing a fundamental transformation. Most of the pros are on vacation or with their national teams at the World Cup in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. There’s hardly any athletic activity on the grounds—instead, heavy machinery dominates the scene.
So far, only two players—Serge Gnabry and David Santos Daiber— have returned. Both are taking their first laps around the field after recovering from serious injuries—Gnabry from a torn adductor muscle in his right thigh, and Daiber from a torn muscle tendon in his left thigh. The two probably barely recognized the grounds upon their return.
100 million euros and about three years of construction
The work is part of the construction of a new professional training center, which the supervisory board had already approved in mid-November 2024. The first phase is a new training field in the far right corner of the club grounds, right next to the fence bordering Am Hohen Weg Park. Like Fields 1 and 2, it will be equipped with a meter-high privacy screen so that Vincent Kompany and his star players can train there without being observed.
The new field, however, is just the beginning. The club announced in 2024 that it plans a comprehensive modernization and significant expansion of the professional wing. The work is expected to take about three years, provided everything goes according to plan. An estimated 50,000 trucks carrying construction debris will have to make the round trip for this project. The cost of the entire renovation: approximately 100 million euros.
Ancelotti Complex Demolished
To make way for the new field, a project that FC Bayern had built at great expense just a few years ago had to be demolished. During the 2016–17 season, then-coach Carlo Ancelotti and his fitness director Giovanni Mauri implemented a fitness course—featuring a ramp, an equipment shed, sand and bark mulch paths for barefoot exercises, balance beams, a basketball hoop, a beach volleyball court, and a soccer-tennis court. Later, a padel court was added as a gift to celebrate the 2020 treble. Cost at the time: around one million euros.
However, after Ancelotti’s departure in September 2017, the “Ancelotti Hill” was hardly used at all. The area is now being redesigned: As early as the beginning of May, workers began removing fence sections, roll-up turf, and artificial turf, as well as dismantling the basketball hoop and beach volleyball net. Heavy machinery then leveled the entire area.
Work is progressing faster and more cost-effectively on the other side of the club building: The fan shop there is closed for renovations and is set to reopen at the end of July with a new store concept.