dr Micheal Diederich from FC Bayern Munich does not rule out a mega transfer of more than 100 million euros in the future. Nevertheless, the financial boss and successor to Hans-Christian Dreesen urges caution.
“There are two aspects here: can we afford such a transfer – and do we want to afford such a transfer,” explained the 57-year-old in the club magazine Säbener 51: “Basically, I don’t rule out anything in life.” Uli Hoeneß hinted in March sky that Bayern could one day dig even deeper into their pockets than with the record transfer Lucas Hernández (80 million euros): “I can imagine that a player will come who costs 100 million euros!”
“I would always be the admonisher who says: Friends, be careful! We also have to keep an eye on the second part of the scale, our profitability,” Diederich explained. Hasan Salihamidzic is primarily responsible for transfers, but “we would of course discuss such a dimension intensively together on the board and the supervisory board. Whether we ultimately want to implement such a transfer depends – by the way, of any magnitude – always primarily on whether the player fits in with the team and with us as a club”.
Against Paris Saint-Germain, for example, you saw that it was about the “team, the spirit and the team spirit”: “Even I, who spent my professional life in a bank, can say: money alone doesn’t score goals. And that’s it good this way.”
FC Bayern Munich: “You can’t shy away from risk”
The key figures of the past few years have shown that FC Bayern is in a very good financial position and could afford to take risks on the transfer market. “You can’t shy away from risk,” explained Diederich: “But it has to be calculable and controllable. Decisions have certain risks above a certain level. There will always be forks in the road where you have to think about what and who you give the right of way. But if we were to lose our economic balance, we would lose a large part of our unique selling proposition.”
Especially since he sees one or the other problem rolling towards the record champions in the future: “The challenges for football in general are complex – from the investor issue to digitization to sustainability, which is becoming increasingly important will change a lot in the next few years.”
The topic in Germany was always the 50+1 rule. Diederich agrees with the opinion of his colleagues at FC Bayern: “My opinion is that it is not right to stick to it dogmatically. Every club should be able to decide for itself – and involve its fans.”
