FC Bayern: Kahn gives an insight into the search for a striker and job criticism

Clause in Nagelsmann contract

Oliver Kahn remains relaxed about his post as CEO despite the lack of commitment from Bayern President Herbert Hainer. “I can absolutely understand when Herbert Hainer says: We now want to concentrate on the sporting side, on winning the German championship. That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said the record champion’s CEO in an interview with “Sport Bild”. Hainer had recently not answered a question about the speculation about a farewell to Kahn.

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“We’ll talk about everything else afterwards. Critical and also self-critical, because of course there are things that we can do better,” says the 53-year-old, who, according to media reports, has to fear for his job after the recent heavy criticism of his work. On May 30th, the supervisory board of the Bundesliga table leader will meet. In the championship, Bayern are one point ahead of Borussia Dortmund with three games remaining. Kahn and also sports director Hasan Salihamidzic were mainly criticized for the squad planning. “We made the decision together last summer to start this season with this squad, which also has a lot of players who can score goals,” emphasized Kahn. When Erling Haaland, who switched to Manchester City, was pushed to the pain limit, but did not want to break the salary structure.

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“We are dealing with the striker issue. Despite all the discussion, one shouldn’t forget that we’ve scored 83 goals in the Bundesliga so far this season, which means we’re top and that shows that our current squad can score a lot of goals. However, we have already drawn eight times this season, which is unusual for FC Bayern. We sometimes lacked penetrating power, especially in tight games,” confirmed Kahn. For currently traded candidates like Randal Kolo Muani or Victor Osimhen, Bayern would have to pay nine-digit transfer fees. “With such sums, FC Bayern has to ask itself: does the player give you a guarantee for this money? That would definitely be a big risk,” says Kahn.

FC Bayern: Clause in Nagelsmann contract reduces financial costs

Kahn defended the separation from Julian Nagelsmann again, even if two possible titles were lost under successor Thomas Tuchel after being eliminated from the Champions League and the DFB Cup. “The results, the form just wasn’t there consistently. At the time of the change of coach we were ten points ahead of Dortmund in the championship. For that reason alone, the decision was the right one,” affirmed the CEO.

The financial burden of the early separation is kept within limits despite the transfer to RB Leipzig (25 million euros) and Nagelsmann’s contract, which runs until 2025. “Yes, that’s a long contract term and we also firmly believed in the future with Julian Nagelsmann. But we didn’t approach the matter naively at the time and took precautions to keep the financial risk within limits,” said Kahn. According to information from “Bild”, there are contractual clauses that reduce Nagelsmann’s salary in the current case of an exemption. From this summer, the ex-coach should only receive 80 percent of his salary, with each additional year of the contract the payments would be reduced accordingly.

FC Bayern: Kahn praises Tuchel – “Impressed from day one”

Despite the meager record of four wins from nine games, Kahn was positive about the work of the new coach since the end of March: “Thomas Tuchel impressed me from day one. I can feel how he not only reaches the players’ minds with his style and speech, but also grabs them emotionally. When I hear his speeches, I would like to run out on the pitch myself to show everyone who thinks that Bayern could stumble after ten championships in a row.”

With a view to the close season finale, the former international goalkeeper is trying to be as close to the team as possible in the coming weeks. “We exchange ideas with the players, with the team council. I go to the players’ wing, have conversations there, I observe the training. Especially in this crucial phase of the season it is important to move even closer together. Our players are experienced and know what needs to be done – but in a situation like this Hasan and I want to set an example of how you win a title race, even if Bayern don’t have a huge lead.”

In the TM podcast, Felix Magath talks about how FC Bayern works: Listen now Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.

FC Bayern: Kahn announces new sales record

In the meantime, FC Bayern is still on course for economic growth. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but sales will be record again, I can tell you that much. And that is an important basis for sporting success. We recently extended the contracts with our main sponsor Deutsche Telekom and our shareholder Allianz for the long term. In addition, we have advanced many things for the future, also with regard to infrastructure,” says Kahn. There will be a new, modern training center in order to remain attractive to world-class players, among other things. In addition, the club is also being promoted internationally as a brand, recently recruiting new partners in the USA and opening an office in Bangkok.

“We are in a process of change. FC Bayern will have to face major challenges in the future. A colleague from the ECA recently said to me: the past decade was the decade of traditional clubs, the coming decade will be that of investor associations. This season, for example, three of the four semi-finalists in the Champions League are investor clubs. We have to have answers to that, and we’ve already achieved quite a few things along the way,” explained Kahn when asked how they intend to defy clubs that are significantly more financially strong in the future. The former professional named possible instruments as follows: “One example is the introduction of salary caps as part of financial sustainability. As a result, some top European clubs will have to downsize their squads. Clubs like FC Bayern have no chance in the future without foreign majority owners. I knew from the start that this challenge wouldn’t be easy and that it can sometimes get crunchy.”

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