Oliver Kahn on Bayern Munich’s transfer policy: “We only spend what we earn”

Bayern Munich has never purchased any one player from a club for more than 80-million euros, and it was that fee which the spent to get Lucas Hernandez from Atletico Madrid back in 2019, when he was still recovering from an injury problem. That was, and still is, a record fee for any Bundesliga club for one, single transfer and the second and third most expensive players behind him are fellow Bayern teammates Matthijs de Ligt and Leroy Sane. Still, though, the fees for the trio Bayern stars pale in comparison to some of the other fees that have been thrown out in Europe’s other top flights, especially in the Premier League where billionaire consortiums ownership of clubs is significantly inflating the amount of money spent in the transfer windows.

At Bayern, it’s always been a philosophy that the club doesn’t want to spend an over-inflated, ludicrous fee to sign any one player, even if they still have an exceedingly more expensive wage bill than any of the other Bundesliga clubs. With continued success comes continued revenue spikes along with savvy business practices and wise investing on and off the pitch. For those reasons, Bayern shouldn’t have to apologize to anyone for being the financial giants domestically.

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Speaking to French outlet L’Equipe (via @iMiaSanMia) recently, Bayern CEO Oliver Kahn explained the club’s philosophy on not caving in to over-inflated transfer fees and how they always try to approach things in the transfer market as wisely as possible. “There’s a philosophy: we only spend what we earn. And investing a lot of money on a single player is always a big risk. Everything must be done wisely. The player must fit into our squad, both from a sporting and economic point of view,” he explained. Having ‘Bayern DNA’ is something that the club values a great deal and it’s clearly evident when a player either does, or doesn’t, possess it.

Erling Haaland was naturally linked with Bayern at different times during his Borussia Dortmund tenure as it became increasingly clear that Robert Lewandowski would be leaving. It was paramount for Bayern to line up an ample replacement and Haaland fit the billing perfectly, except, of course, for his actual billing. Manchester City wound up buying the towering Norwegian for 60-million euros plus add-ons last summer, which was a package that was too much for Bayern.

“Regarding Haaland, the overall package (€60m release clause, salary and bonuses) would have been huge. Sometimes there comes a time when you think you can’t keep up. We will not do anything that could endanger the economic stability of the club. Bayern have no debts. It’s our philosophy and, in the long run, it’s even a competitive advantage,” Kahn explained.