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Bayer Leverkusen turns down €80m bid + loan offer from Real Madrid for Kai Havertz (Bild)
Bayer means business. Rudi Völler and co. have insisted that they will accept nothing less than a transfer fee of €100m for German national player Kai Havertz. According to Bild, they just shot down an offer that would have made a lesser club blink:
In order to bring him to Spain, the Royals supposedly proposed the following model to Leverkusen:
Real would transfer a transfer fee of €80 this summer, but then park the player at Bayer for another year before he would transfer to Madrid in 2021.
Bild argues that Bayern is under increasing pressure to act or they risk losing the opportunity to sign Havertz in 2021 themselves. Havertz supposedly wants to reach clarity about his future this summer.
But nothing is set in stone, least of all in soccer.
It seems unlikely to me that another club could top Real Madrid’s offer. Bayern’s priority has been on Leroy Sané all along. They will not change course now to pursue their second target. But the gamble that Havertz may stay in Leverkusen one more year could pay off.
David Alaba speaks out as a Black man from Vienna, Austria
Jerome Boateng speaks out as a Black man from Berlin, Germany
Chris Richards’s father Ken discusses protests against police brutality in the USA
️New pod!
— scuffed (@zlebmada) June 4, 2020
An interview with Ken Richards, father of Chris Richards. It's somber. We talked about George Floyd, Richards' fears for his own children, and his hope that this horrible moment will yield progress.
We also discussed sports. https://t.co/LoCEbcvkPg
Teams in Europe take a knee in solidarity
Teams around the world take a knee in solidarity. pic.twitter.com/Sqwco4Iprb
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 4, 2020
B/R left out Besiktas:
You forgot to put the best one pic.twitter.com/bacISI1I84
— Alpi (@TieriAlpi) June 4, 2020
Bayern Munich disinclined to allow David Alaba to leave — despite stalled extension talks (kicker)
Kicker posted a curious update about David Alaba’s transfer status. According to the German soccer magazine:
In the case of David Alaba the situation is still unclear. It is well known that Bayern would be happy to extend the Austrian (contract until 2021). With respect to Alaba, the FCBayern front office, according to insiders, is still leaning toward “nein” with respect to a transfer after the current season.
That would suggest that Bayern is confident enough that Alaba will eventually come around to some agreement prior to the end of his contract. It seems inconceivable (at least to me) that Bayern would allow a player of Alaba’s caliber to depart on a free transfer (an opinion I also hold about Thiago).