Robert Lewandowski’s contract with Bayern Munich expires at the end of next season and the future of the Polish forward’s career is still uncertain.
This Sunday, in anticipation of the match with Arminia Bielefeld, the CEO of the Bavarians, Oliver Kahn, sent a message to the fans and gave the status of the negotiations.
“To this day, Robert has a contract with us for the next season. We are in contact with Robert and we want him to stay at Bayern for as long as possible. Apparently, some think that conversations and contract negotiations are like in Football Manager, where I click on something and he renews his contract», he began by saying in Sport 1.
“We also have to look at the situation of the players. The players who have performed well at this club for many years are excellent. Robert became a world football player with us. He is a player who has the potential to score 30, 40 goals a year. Of course, at some point players like this think: ‘I conquered everything here and won everything’. So it takes time to convince him to stay here,” he added.
Kahn also left a warning for Lewandowski. “We will decide when Bayern will start contract negotiations. We know very well what we owe this player. We have to have respect for the player. We don’t let anyone put us under pressure. With Müller, I am very confident that we will be able to say something in the short term. We also have a very good understanding with Manuel [Neuer]. We will not let ourselves be pressured when it comes to making these important decisions.”
Bayern’s CEO assumed that this situation could «create a little friction in the team», but he was convinced that «the players deal with it easily», as «they are professionals». Kahn went even further and compared Lewandowski’s situation to that of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
“Let’s look at the examples of players who changed clubs. What do we associate Ronaldo with? On his way through Real Madrid. What do we associate Messi with? During his time at Barcelona. It’s the same with Robert. And by the way, these conversations also cover financial issues. We all know that we had two very difficult years. As a club, you need to think about how you can still manage all this in the current situation, because Bayern have also suffered from these last two years.”
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