A little over 14 years ago, FC Bayern Munich and its manager at the time, Uli Hoeneß, managed a transfer that would change the history of the club forever. Franck Ribery came from Olympique Marseille in the summer of 2007. It was a coup that stood on the brink for a long time, in the end even cost Hoeneß his driver’s license – and gave FCB one of the club icons of the new millennium.
Actually, Uli Hoeneß is not a man for the really crazy things. At least on the transfer market. There – and he has passed this motto on to his successors Hasan Salihamidzic and Oliver Kahn at Bayern Munich to this day – the very large risks and sums are avoided.
“I only took calculable risks,” he said recently, looking back on the award-winning podcast 11 lives, which illuminates the work of the Bayern maker in 17 episodes with a large final intveriew (all episodes are free here). But sometimes, at least that’s what Hoeneß said there, “almost got a chase fever”, “when I got stuck with a player like that. Then I did things that were pretty unreasonable”.
Looking for an example, he immediately mentioned the name Franck Ribery. “I was so convinced,” said the now 69-year-old, and told of this “hunting fever” which, in retrospect, had seized him again in a summer 2007 that was steeped in history for FC Bayern.
At that time, the balance of power in German football had suddenly changed radically, much to Hoeneß’s displeasure. “His” Bayern had only finished fourth in the 2006/07 season, and VfB Stuttgart had become champions. And the Bavarians? They actually had to be content with the UEFA Cup instead of the Champions League. “Cup of Losers” (Franz Beckenbauer) instead of the big money of the premier class. Seltzer instead of champagne. Cardboard instead of bowl.
FC Bayern – Hoeneß: Adviser? “Could have killed him”
In order to regain power, at least in German football, Hoeneß opened the record champions’ treasure trove in the summer of 2007 – also known as the “fixed deposit account” in Munich parlance. Hoeneß’s eyes went abroad, looking for players who could make FCB the industry leader again. First he moved to Italy, where Luca Toni played for the Fiorentina. Hoeneß was the first top-class striker to get the world champion striker for around eleven million euros.
Then his gaze wandered west, more precisely to France, where a young winger, who had already played big at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, has just returned from his second strong season at Olympique Marseille: Franck Ribery.
“There was a German advisor who said to us: ‘You can have it for 15 to 20 million.’ Then Karl Hopfner (then managing director, editor’s note) and I flew to Paris in a very excited private jet, “said Hoeneß. The goal was the 20th floor of a hotel in Paris. The suite of a certain Pape Diouf, President of Marseille from 2005 to 2009.
According to Hoeneß, this should have cost up to 20,000 euros. But that’s how it is when the “hunting fever” grabs you. Even a Uli Hoeneß does “things that are pretty unreasonable”. However, the audience with the ruler of Marseille did not bring resounding success. On the contrary.
“He asked us if we wanted to have a coffee. Karl Hopfner and I had agreed that I would start and I said: ‘We could imagine ourselves 15 and a little more with bonuses,'” Hoeneß continued. His first offer for the coveted Ribery, however, only elicited a weary smile from Diouf.
“Gentlemen, I think that’s a misunderstanding. We don’t give the player under 30 million,” said Diouf, who died of a corona infection at the age of 68 in March of last year, countered Hoeneß and Hopfner.
“We looked at each other and I thought of the advisor. I could have killed him. Then I asked if we could finish the coffee and then we flew home,” said Hoeneß of his reaction. Hardly a quarter of an hour later they would have left the suite again.
Hoeneß gets Ribery – and loses his driver’s license
Hoeneß did not want to give up that quickly. Back in Munich, he then put on harder bandages and also asked a former and a still active Bayern player for help.
“I called Bixente Lizarazu and Willy Sagnol, who knew the player,” said Hoeneß: “I then put so much pressure on that Franck said to Marseille at the end: ‘Either you let me go to Bayern now or I stay here.'”
Hoeneß knew that the Ligue 1 club’s finances were not in good shape at the time and that Marseille urgently needed the money from a Ribery transfer that summer: “And then I think I got him for a good 20 million . “
After the deal was bagged, Hoeneß was “so euphoric” that he “drove too fast on Leopoldstrasse”. The consequence: He paid for the Ribery transfer not only with “a good 20 million” (today the transfer fee is estimated at 30 million euros), but also with a month’s driving license withdrawn.
Ribery becomes an icon at FC Bayern thanks to “father” Hoeneß
Hoeneß is unlikely to have regretted either the record fee at the time (Javi Martinez was said to have been more expensive in 2012) and the temporary loss of his driver’s license. Ribery stayed – albeit accompanied by one or the other scandal – for twelve years at FCB and has secured a place among the best and most important players of the new millennium. Thanks to him, FC Bayern became the measure of all things again in German football and won the triple in 2013.
In his twelve years on the Isar, Ribery was directly involved in 425 competitive games in 306 goals (124 goals, 182 assists). And when it was time to say goodbye in 2019, the Frenchman only thought of one man at Bayern: Uli Hoeneß.
“I will never forget this man in my life,” said Ribery in an interview with the after his departure from the record champions Deutsche Welle: “He was always there for me, always talked to me, built me up. He was like a father to me. We have a ‘relation speciale’.”
Today’s honorary president of FCB confirmed that this is the case several times – and most impressively at Ribery’s last home game for Bayern on May 18, 2019. When the French came on for Kingsley Coman in the 61st minute, Hoeneß cried in the stands . He also shed tears for Ribery’s congenial partner Arjen Robben, for whom the Bayern Munich chapter was also closed that day.
And Ribery? He gave himself and his president the best farewell present: his last goal in the last home game for FCB. A “relation speciale”.
FC Bayern Munich: Franck Ribery’s performance data
