Oliver Kahn spoke about the future of Robert Lewandowski at Bayern.
“Robert has a contract with the club, which is valid for the whole next season. We communicate with Robert and we want him to stay at Bayern for as long as possible. Obviously, someone thinks that the negotiations are exactly the same as in a football simulator, where you need to press a button and the contract is renewed.
You need to look at the situation in which the player is. The players who have performed well for Bayern over the years are incredible. With us, Robert has become a world-class player. He can score 30-40 goals a year. Of course, at some point the player begins to think that he has achieved everything here and won all the trophies here. So it takes time to convince him to stay.
Look at examples of players who have changed clubs. What do we identify Ronaldo with? With his game “Real”. And Messi? With Barcelona. The same goes for Robert. And, by the way, such negotiations also affect financial issues. We all know that we have gone through two very difficult years. The club needs to think about how to deal with this situation. Because Bayern suffered from these two years.
We will decide when Bavaria start contract negotiations. We know very well what we owe to this player. We need to have a respectful dialogue. We won’t let anyone pressure us. I am sure that we will soon be able to say something about Muller. Everything is going well with Neuer. We will definitely not let anyone pressure Bayern when it comes to such important decisions.”
Are Bayern distracted by the hype around Lewandowski?
“I don’t think so at all. This has never happened at Bayern. Negotiations can cause a little friction within the team, which doesn’t have to be that bad. Small quarrels and riots are not so bad for the working atmosphere. But the players are too professional to succumb to this. They can handle it easily,” said the Bayern CEO.
The 33-year-old striker has scored 47 goals in 41 games for Bayern this season. His statistics can be studied here.