The transfer of Harry Kane to Bayern Munich from Tottenham Hotspur took a ridiculous amount of leg work to pull off and there were handfuls of people involved in making a deal finally get over the line. The saying “it takes a village” somewhat applies to the transfer saga that was on the forefront of every major tabloid for the better part of the summer transfer window before the move was made official, but Bayern got their star man in the end and he’s hit the ground running with three goals and an assist from his first two Bundesliga matches.
After the dismissals of both Hasan Salihamidzic and Oliver Kahn on the last day of the 2022/23 season, Thomas Tuchel, Jan-Christian Dreesen, Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge made up the club’s self-proclaimed transfer committee. It was this committee that would meet regularly during the summer to discuss all things related to both incoming and outbound transfers and they all played their part in pulling off the Kane transfer.
Rummenigge, though, recently detailed his involvement in convincing Kane to join Bayern in a conversation with Bild (via @iMiaSanMia). He mentioned that he had sent Kane a WhatsApp message whilst he was still on holiday in the Bahamas with his family after the June international break. “We all agreed in our transfer committee from day one that we wanted to make this transfer happen. Everyone then had their task, mine was to keep in touch with Harry. I talked to him a lot and immediately realized what a good guy he is. I had the first contact when he was still on vacation in the Bahamas. I texted him telling him that I would like to talk to him on the phone and he answered within two minutes, which is not the norm in the WhatsApp world,” he recalled.
Going into negotiations, Bayern knew that Spurs CEO Daniel Levy would drive a difficult bargain, but they were ready to show Kane himself just how committed they were to getting the deal done that suited all parties. Rummenigge was personally in direct contact with Kane to let him know just how badly they wanted him at Bayern and how important he was to their vision moving forward. “I told him: We will do everything for this transfer to happen because we are all convinced that you are the most important man in the entire transfer market for us. I also told him about my own transfer to Inter in 1984. I had everything at FC Bayern, I was practically the king, but I still wanted to gain this new experience abroad – I told him that it wasn’t an easy transfer for me either,” Rummenigge explained.
Photo by Alexandra Beier/Getty Images for Paulaner
Both Rummenigge and Hoeneß had been outspoken in recent year’s paste about their dissatisfaction with how overly-inflated the transfer market in European football was becoming, but the time would eventually have to come where Bayern would have to spend €100 million on someone. After all, it’s not every club that get’s lucky enough to sign a player like Robert Lewandowski for free from a direct league rival. Spending too much on any one player at Bayern goes against the Mia San Mia grain, but Kane has been the necessary exception.
“Harry Kane was a must do transfer for us for a number of reasons. At the end of the day, during the negotiations, I also said to Jan (Dreesen) that I’m completely open: €10 million to the left or right should not stop this transfer. Because, in addition to his footballing quality, Harry Kane brings back a very important fact for us — hierarchy,” Rummenigge concluded.
