Racing Club de Montevideo has clinched their first-ever national title in Uruguay. Since 2023, this traditional club has been a part of Red&Gold Football, FC Bayern’s international network.
Uruguayan football has long been dominated by a duopoly, with Peñarol and Nacional historically sharing almost all titles. It is therefore all the more remarkable when a smaller club manages to break this pattern, as Racing Club de Montevideo has now done. With two matchdays remaining, Racing is guaranteed to win the Apertura and secure the first national title in the club’s history. After an opening defeat, Racing has since won nine out of twelve matches and is currently seven points ahead of their nearest competitor.
The Apertura is one of two half-year championships within Uruguay’s highly complex league system. By winning it, Racing has qualified for the championship playoffs in the autumn. In the semi-finals, they will face the winner of the Clausura, before the final, where the club with the most points accumulated throughout the entire year will compete for the 2026 championship title. Nacional is the defending champion.
Red&Gold Football: FC Bayern’s Network
Racing is a traditional fixture in Uruguayan football. After a period in the second division, they returned to the Primera División in 2022. Shortly thereafter, Red&Gold Football became the majority shareholder. This initiative is a joint venture that FC Bayern and the MLS club Los Angeles FC have been operating together since 2023.
The objective is to optimize the global discovery and development of talent by acquiring or cooperating with other clubs. In the three years since its inception, the Munich club, under the leadership of youth director Jochen Sauer, has built a network spanning five continents in collaboration with LAFC. In addition to Racing, the Gambinos Stars academy in Gambia, the South Korean first division club Jeju SK FC, and the Ecuadorian first division club SD Aucas are also part of this structure.
Furthermore, LAFC has become a strategic partner of the historically significant but struggling Austrian club Wacker Innsbruck and acquired a majority stake in the Swiss first division club Grasshoppers Zürich in 2024. Outside of this project, FC Bayern cooperates within Germany with third-division club SSV Ulm and Regionalliga club SpVgg Unterhaching. In total, the network now encompasses ten locations.
Racing’s Success Driven by Development, Not Expensive Transfers
Active FC Bayern fans have repeatedly protested against this model, fundamentally rejecting such multi-club ownership arrangements. The reactions to Red&Gold Football’s entry into Racing were mixed. «Some fans are for it, and some are against it,» noted Damian Herrera, a renowned Uruguayan sports journalist, in a recent conversation with SPOX. «Apart from some disagreements on social media, I am not aware of any protests.»
Herrera reports that «not much has changed at first glance» at Racing during their nearly three-year collaboration. Investments have been made in youth infrastructure, but there have been no significant reinforcements for the senior squad. The current success is certainly not based on expensive transfers. According to the specialist portal Transfermarkt, Racing’s entire squad is valued at only around eight million euros, a fraction of the value of the powerhouse Peñarol’s squad (41 million euros).
Since the start of their partnership, several Racing players have made the leap to Europe. The 25-year-old Tomás Verón Lupi had appearances with Grasshoppers last season and is currently back on loan in Uruguay with the reigning champions, Nacional. This past winter, Anderson Rodríguez (19) and Mauro Marichal (18) moved to Innsbruck. They had showcased their potential at the Red&Gold Global Trophy, an event FC Bayern hosted at its campus in November for its partner clubs and other invited teams.
While no Racing player has yet reached the FC Bayern first team, another talent from the network has: Bara Sapoko Ndiaye from Gambinos Stars has already made three appearances, even starting against FSV Mainz 05 over the weekend.