FC Bayern

Back to Doha: how FC Bayern prepped for 2017

FB Bayern Munich returns to the Bundesliga for the second half of the season fresh off their winter training camp in Doha, Qatar.

They call it the winter break in the Bundesliga – a four-week stretch with no matches. But for FC Bayern Munich – currently at the top of the league table – the winter break doesn’t mean a month of vacation. Just after New Year’s, the players were back to work preparing for the second half of the season. For FC Bayern Munich, that meant a trip to Doha for their annual winter training camp.

While the trip only lasted a week in early January, preparations for the trip stretched all the way back to November – and DHL was involved from the very beginning.

Experienced partners

Initial planning with FC Bayern was done by DHL’s Trade Fairs and Events (DHL TFE) team in Cologne, the same team that handled FC Bayern’s equipment transfer for the 2015 and 2016 training camps.

After handling the transport in previous years, we had a good idea about what material the team was going to ship, even before we got the first draft packing lists,” said DHL TFE’s special projects operations manager Philipp Dianin.

Preparing for the trip meant having everything in place two weeks before the team even arrived in Doha. On December 22 – just one day after FC Bayern’s last match of the first half of the season – DHL rolled up to FC Bayern Munich headquarters at Säbener Straße, collected all the equipment for the trip, and headed for the airport.

This was more than just a few training cones and soccer balls: all told, DHL transported 1,810 kilograms of the team’s equipment. That included everything from kitchen utensils for the team’s chef to medical equipment for the team’s trainers.

On the ground in Doha

But DHL’s job wasn’t done by delivering the goods to the airport. There was still the matter of getting everything to the team’s hotel prior to their arrival – and making sure all food items, medical supplies, training equipment, and merchandising items cleared customs.

This is where the expertise of our DHL colleagues on the ground in Qatar came into play.

“We were able to communicate with our colleagues at DHL Qatar well in advance and align on any particular points we needed to focus on regarding customs clearance and local trucking,” Dianin said.

Ready to play

By the time the players and FC Bayern staff arrived in Doha on January 3, everything was in place for the training camp to begin. The sign of a job well done for DHL? That the team can get to work as soon as they arrive.

“We received very positive feedback from the team afterwards, thanking us and saying that everything in Doha went down really smooth,” added Dianin after it was all said and done.

DHL is proud to have played a part in the intense training camp in Doha and looks forward to seeing the team back in action in the Bundesliga, German Cup, and Champions League in 2017!

Posting Guidelines

All communications on Logistics of Things should be appropriate for a professional community, respecting the diverse views of individuals from different backgrounds. We will review all comments and reserve the right to terminate or restrict access to user's account and to delete any content posted through it, without notice and at our discretion, if we deem it to be overly promotional, offensive, or off topic.

All posting become property of DHL.