Good news in tough poker around Harry Kane fluttered onto the table of the Bayern transfer task force over the course of Wednesday: Paris Saint-Germain is said to have made an offer for the English center forward from Tottenham Hotspur. And allegedly, according to various sources, Kane turned down the club owned by the sheikdom of Qatar. This has significantly increased the probability that Bayern will actually succeed in transferring the king this summer. At least that is the positive reading of the message from the depths of the transfer rumor mill, which is running hot as usual in various media and on Twitter.
But apart from rumors and half-baked reports, one thing is certain: Bayern definitely want to sign Kane, according to Lothar Matthäus a “goal machine with an ice-cold finish”. The German record champions are not so busy with any personnel. Even the question of when Manuel Neuer will be fit again and which goalkeeper will be between the posts at the start of the season seems irrelevant at the moment. Are there enough keepers? Neuer, Ulreich, Sommer or anyone else will take on the job.
No, Bayern is all about Kane. The lack of world class in the storm center has become too obvious in the past season. The dominance in the league and the triple triumph in 2020 were closely linked to the name of Robert Lewandowski. Since he left the club for FC Barcelona last year, a reliable and strong center forward has been missing.
Kane should close the gap. Nobody in the wide football world doubts that he is exactly the right man for the job, except for the expert Markus Babbel (“does not fit into the system”). Since the Bavarians don’t listen to experts like Babbel, but use their own football expertise and rightly come to similar conclusions as all the other experts, they have no doubts about Kane’s abilities. Since Thiago, who was brought in in 2013 at the urgent request of then-coach Pep Guardiola, Bayern have not desired a player so intensely.
That’s why the transfer task force around Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is ready to go to the financial pain threshold. According to media reports, the first offer for a purchase was 70 million euros, with the sum only representing the basic amount. Various bonuses, earnest money and bonuses would have been added and would have made the overall package much more expensive.
However, the first attempt at rapprochement fizzled out. The president of Tottenham Hotspur, Daniel Levy, who is considered a rip-off manager and tough negotiator, refused.
Because apparently Levy has decided to pull out all the stops in poker for his most important player. The entrepreneur also rejected a second offer of 80 million euros and switched to a counterattack. Tottenham are said to have offered Kane a pay rise in return for his contract extension. If you consider that Kane already earns around twelve million euros net per year, that is a serious argument for staying with the north London club.
In any case, Levy drives the price for Kane to exorbitant heights. It doesn’t matter whether that’s the only reason he made the offer or whether he really wants to keep Kane. Levy is able to do this because he is in a comfortable negotiating position. If the striker extends his contract with his home club, for which he has been playing since he was eleven, it is sportingly valuable for Spurs. On the other hand, if Levy accepts Bayern’s offer, Levy will make a huge profit. Given that Spurs aren’t qualified for the Champions League or any other European competition and don’t generate any revenue from them, that’s relevant for a top English club.
Because Bayern should now be ready to increase the offer to 90 to 95 million euros. The sum is extremely high given that Kane will soon be 30 and has just one year left with Spurs. It underlines the importance of the transfer.
Should the transfer not go through this summer, Bayern would be willing to wait a year, they say, and sign Kane on a free transfer. However, this variant seems unlikely: the player would waste a year at a club with which he has not won a single title. Given his age, that would be by far the worst solution for the attacker. And the Spurs lost a hundred million euros.
Sources: “kicker”, “Sport Bild”, “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, “Sky Sport”
