Mia San Sorry: why is Bayern Munich profusely apologizing to Man City over Leroy Sané remarks?

Manchester City’s Leroy Sane. Is he staying with City to continue to work under Pep Guardiola, or will he finally decide to make the big move to Bayern Munich? It’s been one of the summer’s most lucrative questions and the saga has taken its fair share of twists and turns. Justifiably, so much hype has surrounded this potential transfer, but it’s caused a PR headache for Bayern to the point that they have now had to publicly apologize to Pep Guardiola and Manchester City for some of the things they’ve said about Sane.

Speaking after Bayern’s big 6-1 win over Fenerbache in the Audi Cup, sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic said that Bayern needs to stop talking on record about Sane out of respect for Manchester City (per SportBild):

It’s important that we don’t talk about players who are under contract at another club. We have to apologize to ManCity for the fact that their player is being talked about the whole time. We would be well advised not to say anything more about the matter, but rather to keep quiet both inside and outside. We have to put the matter to rest now.

Photo by Sebastian Widmann/Bongarts/Getty Images

Niko Kovac had to apologize to Guardiola and City for saying that Bayern’s leadership was very engaged in the transfer negotiations and that he felt quite confident that they’d land him. CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge felt that Kovac’s remark was premature and “didn’t like” the comment, causing Kovac to apologize for what he had said. By that same token, Kovac came back and said that he felt he was simply speaking truthfully and didn’t necessarily say anything out of order.

BFW Analysis

At this point, almost everyone here at BFW, like many Bayern fans, is exhausted with the Sane transfer saga. In conversation with BFW’s Chuck Smith behind the scenes, he laid it out spot on when he said, “at this point, wherever Sane winds up, he’s really going to be pissing off whichever club he winds up not playing for.” So much has been said about Sane from Bayern’s perspective, but we’ve heard virtually nothing from the midfielder himself. Guardiola has already pressured him to make a decision and has made it clear that he doesn’t want unhappy players in his City squad, which is loaded with talent and depth, particularly in midfield.

The fact that Bayern has had to apologize to City is concerning. Could this be yet another big failed transfer? When Kovac said he was confident Bayern will sign Sane, he technically wasn’t saying anything that was untrue or out of line, but Salihamidzic, Rummenigge, and (presumably) the rest of Bayern’s front office seem to be walking on eggshells in their efforts to not unsettle anyone at Manchester City.

Of course, a lot of this has to do with Bayern’s strong relationship with Guardiola that they certainly don’t want to jeopardize, but was he really bothered by Kovac saying he’s confident that Bayern will sign one of his players? Bayern also didn’t seem to worried about speaking publicly on Chelsea’s Callum Hudson-Odoi, who had been one of the club’s big transfer targets for the past 9 months, although he seems to be close to signing a new contract at Stamford Bridge. Salihamidizc, in particular, spoke openly about Bayern’s desire to bring in Hudson-Odoi; why didn’t he have to apologize to Chelsea for that? Kovac was just speaking the truth when he was asked about Sane and didn’t really say anything that would cause the transfer to fall through in one way or another. It almost seems as if Salihamidzic and Rummenigge are just trying to take some of the pressure off of the front office because so much has been made of Sane’s potential transfer to Bayern. At this point, if the transfer fails, a lot of Bayern fans will more than likely be up in arms about it.

What does everyone think about this? Let us know in the comments section!