Robert Lewandowski has now publicly announced that he will not extend his contract with FC Bayern, which expires in 2023. While club president Herbert Hainer was still naming the conditions for a transfer in the summer on Sunday morning, CEO Oliver Kahn spoke a little later.
When asked about a possible separation from Robert Lewandowski in the coming weeks, Hainer said, on the show “Doppelpass” on “Sport1”: “That’s ok if both sides agree. Robert said that on Saturday too.”
Hainer added: “You have to make sure that you find a solution for both of them. That means there must also be a solution for FC Bayern.” According to media reports, the record champion still has a transfer fee of around 40 million euros in the summer.
Bayern Munich’s CEO Oliver Kahn, on the other hand, was clearer. “He has a contract until 2023. He will fulfill this contract. Basta!” Said Kahn on Sunday afternoon on the sidelines of the championship celebration at Marienplatz on “Bayerisches Fernsehen” about the Lewandowski cause.
FC Bayern knows the “whole theater”
The record champions are “very clear. That’s the way it is. There is no player who is above FC Bayern and bigger than this club,” emphasized the Bayern boss.
The club knows the “whole theater and the alarmism from the past. That doesn’t give us a headache,” Kahn continued.
An offer was made to Lewandowski, “he rejected it, it’s his right.” His former coach Otto Rehhagel once said, according to Kahn: “Anyone who signs a contract with FC Bayern must know what they have done.”
Herbert Hainer had also made it clear on “Sport1” that a change in the summer was out of the question because an adequate replacement for Lewandowski could not be committed at such short notice.
“As we all said, there is no replacement for such a world-class player. And he has a contract, so I assume he will fulfill the contract,” said Hainer.
Lewandowski’s departure from FC Bayern “his right”
Conversely, that would mean that Lewandowski would leave the club free of charge in a year. However, this is not a horror scenario for Uli Hoeneß’s successor.
“It’s his right not to extend the contract. Of course he can then go on a free transfer, he came to us on a free transfer back then,” Hainer recalled of the center forward’s move from BVB to Munich in 2014.
In addition, the club president commented on the statement made by the attacker after the last Bundesliga game that the club had not yet made him an offer for an extension.
Didn’t FC Bayern make any offer to Lewandowski?
“Talks took place with Robert – or rather with his advisor – I wasn’t there myself. But as far as I know, Hasan (Salihamidzic, editor’s note) and Oliver (Kahn) made him an offer to extend and that’s it apparently not accepted,” Hainer explained on the show.
However, Hainer indicated that this offer was only made verbally: “There is only a written offer when everything has been negotiated verbally. First we start talking, then we negotiate and sometime after weeks or months we say: ‘This is how we do it that.’ And then it will be worked out in writing”.
However, the talks do not seem to have gotten to this point.
The question of a successor for the top scorer will come up again in Munich in the summer of 2023 at the latest. Hainer called the proposal to replace Lewandowski next year with Karim Benzema from Real Madrid, whose contract will also expire, “creative”.
Patrik Schick from Bayer Leverkusen was also discussed as a possible new signing in the panel discussion. However, Hainer did not want to comment on this person.