Dare to do… An approach the England captain thinks you can snatch from Tottenham Hotspur, two years after Manchester City failed and shortly before they broke the Premier League record.
‘Absolutely crazy’, how Bayern Munich honorary chairman Uli Hoeness dismissed the prospect of them signing Harry Kane told the German city side. Abendzeitung March newspaper. But by the beginning of July, Bayern Munich had convinced themselves of their ability to achieve success.
Hoeness-Brashley declared that “Tottenham will give up”, much to the embarrassment of his fellow club staff.
Completing this complex task, a much more difficult endeavor than Sadio Mane’s ill-fated transfer from Liverpool a year ago, would do wonders for the Bavarians’ self-image.
It’s a classic ‘hose-dick’ (literal translation: big-pants) transfer from the serial Bundesliga champions, as they demonstrated their enduring financial and sporting might after the 2022-23 season ended (by their standards) in a boardroom coup.
There is a political dimension to all of this, too.
New CEO Jan Christian Dressen and Hoeness and reinvigorated long-term former CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge were all too happy to start this new era with as much fanfare as possible, spending more than €100m (£86.4m, $110m) on 30-year-old striker.
It is not certain that former sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic would have been entrusted with handing over that much capital, although new financial director Michael Diedrich initially predicted Bayern would break the €100m ceiling for a new striker in an interview with club media in April.
Two years ago, the denizens of Sabener Strasse, Bayern Munich’s training ground, would have considered this to be the very kind of madness, only foreign clubs with more money than sense are affected by it. But in the context of last season’s miserable campaign and the failed attempt to move beyond the club’s traditional reliance on the No. 9, betting on an emphatic striker position finally came to be seen as an absolute necessity.
Age meant that Kane would not be able to score goals for nearly a decade in Munich, as his predecessor Robert Lewandowski did. Eintracht Frankfurt’s Randal Kolo-Mwane, 24, would have offered a long-term solution with a huge improvement in terms of resale, but coach Thomas Tuchel and the board have valued proven quality over potential.
They hope Kane’s arrival will immediately put Bayern back into the list of Champions League contenders, after two disappointing appearances that ended in the quarter-finals (against Villarreal in 2022 and eventual winners Manchester City this year). Stylistically, he also looks better suited than Kolo Muani, who is more of a Thierry Henry type, better at running a four-back from wide areas.
Kane’s entry will be especially interesting for Hoeness.
The 71-year-old is a huge fan of English football and loves to watch the Premier League. He also has a long-standing fascination with powerful attackers. Kane ticks both of those boxes for him, just as Mark Hughes did when he bought the former Manchester United player from Barcelona as Bayern’s general manager in 1986.
The Welshman was not as successful in Munich, but Hoeneß tried another British striker in Alan McInally from Aston Villa three years later. The Scotsman later called up the former Bayern Munich and West Germany striker awarding him 50 Deutschmark papers whenever he scored a header.
Bayern’s inability to attract first-class attackers after the departure of Ballon d’Or winner Rummenigge to Inter Milan in 1984 was one of the main reasons for their lack of success in Europe.
Frenchman Jean-Pierre Papin had surpassed his personal best when he arrived at the Stade Olympique at the age of 30 in 1994, and it wasn’t until the arrival of Roy Mackay in 2003, a then club record €18.75m (£16.2m / $20.6m) million dollars at current exchange rates) Transfer from Spain’s Deportivo La Coruña Bayern can count on a ruined international reputation.
World Cup winner Luca Toni and World Cup top scorer Miroslav Klose were both signed in 2007, following Bayern’s move to the purpose-built Allianz Arena. Then in 2014 came Lewandowski, who established the solid foundation for Bayern’s domestic dominance for most of the past decade.
Kane’s move will be privately welcomed by officials of other clubs. The Bundesliga could attract more international stars – especially those who appeal to English-speaking media everywhere.
For a whole generation of German supporters, this will all seem like a major novelty. No Englishman in his prime has moved there since Kevin Keegan (Hamburg) and Tony Woodcock (Cologne) in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
What is clear, however, is that Kane going to Bayern won’t do much for the league’s competitiveness.
(Top photo: Alex Grimm/Getty Images)
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