dpa
Berlin
Bayern Munich talisman Thomas Muller has reacted amused to speculation he could leave the club to get more playing time elsewhere, with CEO Oliver Kahn ruling out such a scenario.
Wednesday’s edition of the Sport Bild weekly suggested that the forward Muller was toying with leaving Bayern because he was not satisfied with his playing time under Julian Nagelsmann and his successor Thomas Tuchel.
He has rarely been a starter lately which has sparked a big debate.
But Muller took to Instagram to rubbish the claims showing him standing next to one of his horses named King D’avie along with the caption “If you could read the paper King D’avie” along with a face-palm emoji and hashtags “now it’s really becoming wild”, “full focus on the championship” and “always FCB.”
Bavarian Muller, 33, has been at Bayern since the age of 10 and made his Bundesliga debut in 2008. The fan favourite has won two trebles with them in 2013 and 2020, plus many more titles and the 2014 World Cup with the national team.
Sport Bild said that Muller wants to continue playing at the highest level until 2024 - the year his current Bayern contract ends.
Kahn had earlier insisted in an interview with Sport Bild that a Muller exit “will not happen.” “If that should ever happen I would talk him out of it in no uncertain terms. Thomas is fit, never injured and has an incredibly strong character. He is incredibly important for the whole structure.
I am sure that Thomas will play many more games for us,” Kahn said.
A departure would be a huge shock for the club and its fans and could add to the pressure on Kahn and board member for sport Hasan Salihamidzic who have come under criticism for not signing an adequate replacement for striker Robert Lewandowski and the circumstances around Nagelsmann’s dismissal at the end of March.
Bayern lead the Bundesliga but with Borussia Dortmund only one point behind Bayern could end the season without a trophy for the first time since 2012.
A supervisory board meeting which could decide especially on Kahn’s future is scheduled for May 30, three days after the end of the league season.
Kahn reiterated that it was a right decision to part ways with Nagelsmann but also said that “of course there are things we could have done better,” pledging a “critical and self-critical” assessment after the season.
Kahn reiterated they had tried to get striker Erling Haaland, now at Manchester City, but that he was too expensive. He said he and Salihamidzic then decided to go into the season with the current squad “because it contains many players who can score goals.” But that has not happened in a satisfactory way and the Bayern boss confirmed that they were now looking for a new striker.
Kahn however remained cautious whether it would be worth splashing out at least Euro100 million ($109.7 million) for the likes of Napoli’s Victor Osimhen or Eintracht Frankfurt’s Randal Kolo Muani - who are also sought by other European top clubs.
“With sums like that Bayern have to ask themselves: Does the player give you a guarantee for this money? It would definitely be a big risk,” Kahn said.
