Oliver Kahn has left open an extension of the contract of sports director Hasan Salihamidzic at FC Bayern, which expires in 2023.
“I like working with Hasan and he gives everything for the club every day. We will analyze the season together and continue to work on FC Bayern’s success. Basically, however, the supervisory board is responsible for extending board contracts,” said the Munich player CEO in an interview with “Welt am Sonntag”.
Salihamidzic had recently come under increasing criticism for his controversial transfer and personnel policy.
FC Bayern fears “levers” in the Premier League
Kahn sees the fight for competitiveness at FC Bayern as his most important task in comparison with the financially strong English Premier League clubs. “It’s a big challenge. We can’t kid ourselves about that,” he said.
From Kahn’s point of view, however, being on an equal footing with the teams from the homeland of football is an increasingly tricky project.
“The leverage of the Premier League clubs through the combination of investor funds and the more than three and a half times the income from media rights compared to the Bundesliga is enormous,” said the 52-year-old: “This leverage means that the top English clubs further and further away from us in their salary structure, the gap is growing. This allows them to afford a broader and more expensive roster.”
New sources of income for FC Bayern
Kahn wants to compensate for the structural disadvantages of his club as much as possible by developing new sources of income “related to football”. “In terms of Metaverse, Web 3.0 and crypto, there will be exciting opportunities in the future. Above all, however, we are further developing our classic business areas of stadiums, ticketing, merchandising and sponsoring and taking them to the next level.”
Despite falling out of the quarter-finals again in the Champions League, Kahn still sees Bayern as contenders for winning the European premier class: “We’re still able to have 14 to 15 absolute top players in our ranks. If all the building blocks fit together in a season , we can still win the Champions League in the future.”