The transfer poker around Bayern star Robert Lewandowski goes into the next round. For the 33-year-old, “FC Bayern is history,” announced the player’s agent for Poland. The statement caused displeasure on Säbener Straße. Sports director Hasan Salihamidzic goes on to counterattack.
Robert Lewandowski relaxes on the white sandy beach, at home there are still heated debates and speculations about his future. While the two-time world footballer is on vacation with his family in Turkey, the struggle for the Pole is entering the next round in Munich and Barcelona. According to reports from “Bild am Sonntag”, the financially troubled Catalans are said to have submitted a first written offer of 32 million. Sports director Hasan Salihamidzic kept a low profile and instead attacked the Pole’s advisor.
Statements by the Pole, according to which he should not have received an offer to extend his contract from Bayern, which expires in 2023, have now been clearly contradicted by the Munich board of directors. “In the conversation with his advisor, we clearly made him an offer. It’s clear that he received an offer with a term and a sum,” said Salihamidzic in the Sport1 “double pass”.
Who is responsible for this communication confusion? Maybe Lewandowski’s agent Pini Zahavi? The 78-year-old player’s agent is said to be the driving force in transfer poker. “Of course he (Lewandowski) has an advisor who turns his head. That’s just not clean,” said Salihamidzic and was “surprised” by the Israeli’s behavior. “I can’t say what he then said to the player.”
Bayern had already clashed with Zahavi before David Alaba moved to Real Madrid. Honorary President Uli Hoeneß described Zahavi as “a greedy piranha”. According to Zahavi, the relationship between those responsible for Bayern and him has been strained since then. “I was chosen as the enemy because David Alaba made the decision to leave the club a year ago,” he told the “Bild”. And now the 78-year-old has announced the departure of Lewandowski in response to the latest Salihamidzic statements.
“Of course you can keep Robert for another year, to be fair he has a contract until 2023, but I wouldn’t recommend that to you. For Robert Lewandowski, FC Bayern is history,” he said. At the same time he denied a contract offer for the Poles. Now Lewandowski wants to fulfill a lifelong dream and switch to another club. The reason for this is not money, neither for the world footballer nor for him as a consultant. “He hasn’t felt respected by those responsible for months, that’s the truth. Bayern didn’t lose the player Lewandowski, but the person Robert,” said Zahavi.
The background is said to be that Bayern should have tried to get Dortmund striker Erling Haaland. The Norwegian is now moving to Manchester City. Contrary to his clear statements about the player’s agent, Salihamidzic kept a low profile on a possible 32m offer from the Catalans. The Spanish newspaper “Sport” recently reported that Bayern had lowered their demand to 35 to 40 million. “We don’t want to talk publicly about it now, whether there are any offers or not,” said the 45-year-old. For Bayern, the most important thing is to have another year’s contract with the “most important player”. A player “that many clubs in Europe would like to have,” said Salihamidzic.
Despite all the wild speculation about a possible premature change, the German record champions continue to insist that “Lewy” fulfills his working paper. “Robert Lewandowski has a contract until 2023 and he will fulfill it,” said CEO Oliver Kahn of “Welt am Sonntag”. Salihamidzic added his meanwhile standardized sentence in this case: “Lewy has a contract until next summer.”
One thing is certain: Despite the summer break for FC Bayern and Salihamidzic, who was recently whistled at by his own fans, the next few weeks will be anything but quiet. “It’s clear to us that we’re going to start now. The market is opening up at this time. A lot will happen there,” said Salihamidzic. Sounds like turbulent weeks and more rounds of transfer poker around Lewandowski.
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