Karl-Heinz Rummenigge stresses importance of re-establishing clear hierarchy at Bayern Munich

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is officially back on Bayern Munich’s supervisory board in the wake of the club making the decision to fire both Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidzic, which coincided with their 11th straight Bundesliga title. Jan-Christian Dreesen has been named the club’s new CEO, but there is still no sporting director, but having Rummenigge back on the supervisory board is a welcome sight for the majority of Bayern fans. Kahn took over for Rummenigge as the club’s CEO back in the summer of 2021, but the former goalkeeper’s tenure in that capacity hasn’t quite worked out as the club had wished.

Looking ahead to his role in the supervisory board, Rummenigge is keen on re-establishing a clear sense of hierarchy and direction at the club, which is something he’s well-equipped to do with his experience working in the club’s front office. “I feel the need to stand by the club where I spent 40 years of my life as a player, vice president and CEO. It’s important now to bring calm to the club quickly. FC Bayern has always been successful as a unit,” he recently told Deutschen Presse-Agentur (via @iMiaSanMia).

He wants there to be clear structure moving forward and doesn’t want the club to just have to blow ludicrous amounts of money to address their problem areas. That’s not to say he’s not a proponent of bringing in the right players in the transfer market, but he’s long since been against the idea of 100-million euro transfers for any one player. “We have to create a hierarchy in the team again. You don’t always have to blow hundreds of millions of euros into the transfer market. But you have to have a functional team on the pitch. No. 9 will certainly be a position that FC Bayern will look at. We shouldn’t forget that Bayern had the world’s best footballer in this position. Nevertheless, you don’t always have to just go for the top shelf with new signings,” he said.

Despite having clear ideas on how to fix some of the problems that existed within Bayern’s front office, Rummenigge also doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries. It’s come out in recent weeks that Uli Hoeness still has a great deal of influence on some of the decisions that the club makes even though he’s no longer president, but the same can’t be said as much for Rummenigge.

While he is returning to Bayern’s supervisory board, he doesn’t want to disrupt any of the operational running of the front office with still being able to offer his advice and input where it’s needed. “I’m not going to intervene in the operations. I hope we’ll quickly be able to present a solution (new sporting director),” he explained.