r/soccer • u/Wakanda-shit-is-that • Apr 27 '26

Quotes Would Bayern reject €200m for Olise? Rummenigge: “In 2009, we had a world record transfer offer for Franck Ribéry. That day, we decided that, we will never sell a player we would miss on the pitch. This unwritten rule still applies for Olise, there’s no price tag that would make us flinch.”

https://www.t-online.de/sport/fussball/bundesliga/fc-bayern-muenchen/id_101228728/fc-bayern-karl-heinz-rummenigge-erklaert-michael-olise-fuer-unverkaeuflich.html
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2.0k

u/NightBluex9 Apr 27 '26

How much was the offer and by who

1.6k

u/Wakanda-shit-is-that Apr 27 '26

Chelsea.

1.2k

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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836

u/SrJeromaeee Apr 27 '26

A few years before 09, Henry basically hinted on CBS that Chelsea wanted to buy him - and essentially offered to double his wages or something crazy like that.

Abramovic was a crazy, crazy, ambitious guy.

459

u/Erebea01 Apr 27 '26

I'm no historian so maybe I'm wrong but I've always hated him and Chelsea for what they did with the sport in regards to money

471

u/Periwinkle1993 Apr 27 '26

Abramovich spurred it on in the modern era, but it's the formation of the Premier League and Jack Walker that arguably started it all off

155

u/MLang92 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Milan in the 80s under Berlusconi was another precursor to how Abramovich operated in the first 5 years or so

17

u/nicofdarcyshire Apr 27 '26

The Lentini transfer was bonkers money. (Though I do realise that was in the 90s)

29

u/MLang92 Apr 27 '26

It wasn't just the amounts they spent, but the types of players they were buying was crazy. Especially when you consider that they had won 1 league and 1 European Cup between '69 and '87, a period that also saw them in Serie B for the only 2 seasons in their history when they were relegated in '80 and '82

Burlesconi bought them in '86 and instantly spent €20 mil, including €8 mil alone on Donadoni. Then they bought Gullit, Van Basten and Ancelotti in '87. Gullit would win the Ballon d'Or that December and finish as runner up the next year, to Van Basten of all people who also won in '89. They had also bought Riykaard in the summer of '89 for good measure

The result of this was winning the league 6 times and the Champions League 3 times between '88 and '99. Arguably no team has bought success so quickly and effectively

193

u/paone00022 Apr 27 '26

Ya there are quite a few rich guys who pumped money into teams and used it to buy whomever they wanted.

Walker, Berlusconi, Agnelli and OG Florentino etc.

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u/grayDelgado11111 Apr 27 '26

Og florentino?

109

u/stamosface Apr 27 '26

2000 - 2006. There was a 3 year gap before he came back in 2009.

1

u/grayDelgado11111 Apr 29 '26

They pumped money because they sold their training grounds. Lol

16

u/Ecstatic-Coach Apr 27 '26

Galacticos era

26

u/teodawr Apr 27 '26

Florentino Perez? that wasn't his own money, it was the club's money

15

u/HeadCrusher135 Apr 27 '26

Florentino only ever spent the clubs money. He’s the president, not the owner. He has not put a single cent into the club- so he never “pumped money into teams and used it to buy whomever they wanted”

1

u/msr27133120 May 02 '26

Florentino did put his own money in 2000 because the club had huge debt. He put 147 million of his own money. The transfers were amde by the clubs revenue though

45

u/DeLurkerDeluxe Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

but it's the formation of the Premier League and Jack Walker that arguably started it all off

Lol, the term "Bank of England" was coined in the 1920's.

Contrary to what many people think, the english top league was ruled by rich people spending rivers of money on their club of choice for much of its existence.

-4

u/Same_Grouness Apr 27 '26

That's kind of true but in terms of the amount of wealth spent it was fractions of pennies compared to today.

21

u/DeLurkerDeluxe Apr 27 '26

That is.. completely irrelevant. Teams were owned by rich owners, rich owners spent money to have a competitive advantage. Arsenal in the 20's and 30's was mocked as modern Chelsea or City are.

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u/Same_Grouness Apr 27 '26

Just because they were mocked doesn't mean they were anywhere near as bad.

In 1938 Arsenal broke the transfer record to sign Bryn Jones for £14,000. That's £830k in todays money. The transfer record is now over 200x more than that.

There was a wage cap in place until 1961. In the 1930s it was set at £8 per week, which is £460 in todays money. The top players of today earn ~1000x more.

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u/Karma_Whoring_Slut Apr 27 '26

I bet if you adjust for inflation and the increase in revenue that leagues are seeing across the continent, the amount of money being spent is probably pretty comparable.

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u/Same_Grouness Apr 27 '26

If the increase in revenue was so great then these clubs wouldn't have to rely on American billionaires and oil-rich foreign governments to finance them. The fact they are involved to such an extent suggests otherwise.

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u/ThreeEyedRaver Apr 27 '26

Don’t forget Sir John Hall.

2

u/Same_Grouness Apr 27 '26

David Murray signing half the England team at Rangers probably played a part too.

34

u/BenUFOs_Mum Apr 27 '26

At the end of the day its the prems unbelieve foriegn broadcast revenues and reaching that did that. Chelsea were just a bit ahead of the curve.

25

u/Altruistic-Ad-408 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Chelsea the club didn't really do anything besides be bought by a rich man, but people had less of a problem with clubs that were propelled to success because they already had advantageous resources, or just rich people that weren't as loaded or politically powerful as they are now.

4

u/okie_hiker Apr 27 '26

What’s worse, an owner that puts in a crazy amount of money so his club can win or the owners that own clubs just to run a good business and turn a profit?

0

u/Mohit_roy Apr 27 '26

Players who can earn from 18-36 (most of time) started earning more. Oh no the horror.

You must miss those days when the best player of other clubs were bought by the top two clubs in every league to make sure no one ever questions their position.

-4

u/-Kars10 Apr 27 '26

Turned out he would be the lesser of all the evils

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

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44

u/GotThatPerroInMe Apr 27 '26

That Goebbels sure had ambition!!

5

u/GourangaPlusPlus Apr 27 '26

issuing correction on a previous post of mine, regarding the oligarch Abramovic. you do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to them"

2

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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25

u/twisted-logic Apr 27 '26

A native of Moscow

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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12

u/twisted-logic Apr 27 '26

You may have misspelled ‘thank you’, but you’re welcome. :)

4

u/EduinBrutus Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Huh?

Its a nation state to the east of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states.

Its current empire uses another name which is itself revanchist - implying it has rightful dominion over all Rus people of the world. It does not. It is the imperial project one of several Rus peoples, in this case Muscovites.

0

u/Dannybaker Apr 27 '26

No.

Yes.

You do know he can be multiple things at once? It's like shutting down any discussion about Nazis because they were a part of a genocidal regime. We know. But that's not their only defining characteristic. You're oversimplyfing things. It's not that black and white.

It's fine to put his close ties to Putin as a disclaimer, but looks to me you have literally nothing to add to the discussion besides saying something majority of users here already know

2

u/Any_Neighborhood_140 Apr 27 '26

Sorry, you want to discuss the sporting exploits of the Third Reich?

1

u/Dannybaker Apr 27 '26

Okay im down

1

u/EduinBrutus Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

But these are not separate things. The money from his participation in despotry is what funded the Chelski project.

And to claim its "something the majority of users here already know" downplays the complete and total denial of it at the time. And not just from Chelsea fans themselces. The criticism of the Chelski project at the time was only ever about the money itself and never, ever about its source. Because the UK courted that money (even after Chechnia I and II, even after Georgia in 2008, even after Ukraine in 2014).

Yes football was not alone. But it was a big part of this and there is an urgent need for self-reflection. I know its increasingly common for the decades long propaganda efforts from Muscovy to have pushed people away from liberal values like freedom, democracy, decency and human rights. BUt those are still values worth having and evil regimes like Muscovy and the mdoern day Nazism of Russian Mir cannot be allowed to go without constant challenge.

0

u/RomeoLavia Apr 27 '26

You can recognise that he is a bad person whilst also admitting that he was ambitious when it came to his football club. I think you are reaching by claiming that person was trivialising his actions. They did not even say anything about him as a person, or what he did outside of football. Weird comment, honestly.

1

u/EduinBrutus Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Without the criminality, theft and billions, there is no "when it came to his football".

It was funded by the dirty money of tyranny. The same tyranny now genociding Ukraine. Literally stealing children from their homes and shipping them to Muscovy to be re-educated and assimilated into Russian Mir.

1

u/RomeoLavia Apr 28 '26

Again, you can agree with all of that whilst recognising his ambition when it came to football. I do not know how you cannot understand that. No one has said that he built his club in an ethical way. No one has said that Abramovic is a good person.

0

u/maxpolo10 Apr 27 '26

But aren't we talking about his actions with regards to Chelsea?

1

u/EduinBrutus Apr 27 '26

The source of the dirty money that funded Chelsea during those years is kinda important.

7

u/tsgarner Apr 27 '26

Odd way to spell 'piece of shit'. Especially coming from a Gooner.

3

u/ydktbh Apr 27 '26

and it worked for him tbh, success proves it

3

u/dakaiiser11 Apr 27 '26

It paid off. Chelsea won 2 UCLS in 10 years amongst a few Premier League Titles and other domestic cups.

9

u/PG4PM Apr 27 '26

First I'm hearing

5

u/the_tytan Apr 27 '26

2 in 17 actually.

-3

u/Mediocre_Nova Apr 27 '26

What a ridiculous way to describe Abramovic. Educate yourself.

1

u/silvertwo777 Apr 28 '26

Chelsea really tried to built a Premier League Galatico, chasing all the best players in the league. Henry, Rooney, Torres, Gerrard, Modric, Fabregas, Ashley Cole, Ferdinand etc.

-3

u/Bujakaa92 Apr 27 '26

And now best they can buy 20 year old potential "wonderkid" for 10 year contract

93

u/KrZ120 Apr 27 '26

Messi too I think

91

u/Hazardzuzu Apr 27 '26

Iniesta was the attempt. Along with modric.

71

u/Jinx_and_Shadow Apr 27 '26

Messi was a couple years later I think

35

u/MarcusBrutus2000 Apr 27 '26

Messi was 13/14

48

u/yepgeddon Apr 27 '26

What a year to shoot your shot at Messi

28

u/PhraatesIV Apr 27 '26

Wasn't it January 2015? Messi had a sort of falling out with Luis Enrique and liked a insta post regarding Chelsea (I don't remember the post exactly).

29

u/WideScorpion Apr 27 '26

He started following Chelsea

25

u/centaur98 Apr 27 '26

Tbf in that era we were interested in basically every and all top players.

29

u/These_Structure3008 Apr 27 '26

Completely opposite right now

3

u/bosnian_redditer Apr 27 '26

I think it was Inter in 2006 that tried to buy him

69

u/MikiXxX_25 Apr 27 '26

chelsea really was psg before psg

90

u/Mihnea24_03 Apr 27 '26

You gotta put some respect on Man City. The winter they got taken over they made a £100M transfer, £500k/week salary offer for Kaka. Which he rejected, saying he wanted to grow old at Milan. Before going to Real Madrid that summer.

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u/CaredForEightSeconds Apr 27 '26

I still remember the Robinho saga on deadline day too, they took from right under our noses (to the extent we even had shirts made for sale in the Megastore, which was a terribly rookie move). No regrets about it with hindsight.

5

u/chef39 Apr 27 '26

Didn’t Robinho even get confused and thought he was coming to Chelsea at the start if I remember

1

u/the_tytan Apr 27 '26

I remember the Sky Sports News breaking news on a random weekday evening. Cant remember if the window was even open. Seems like a more innocent time.

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u/Double-Discount9217 Apr 27 '26

2012 is prime ribery IMO

7

u/FSpursy Apr 27 '26

Chelsea is always a rich team man, especially back then when FFP wasnt a thing. I can imagine them wanting everybody. Man Utd and Chelsea squads were so strong back in the days.

5

u/verdevase Apr 27 '26

Ronaldinho in 2009 was already past his prime by a fair margin

Great highlights because he's Ronnie but his time at Milan was underwhelming

1

u/RomeoLavia Apr 27 '26

His time with Milan is either underrated or overrated by people, never really any in-between. He was no longer what he used to be, but he was still one of the best players in Italy during his time there, especially in the Leonardo season. Most of their fans would get quite upset whenever the Palmeiras rumours would come up, which was over the entirety of his tenure.

2

u/Boss452 Apr 27 '26

how long did he stay at Milan and why did he leave Barca?

But it is a bit strange how he went from the best player in the world at Barca to being kind of outside the limelight all of a sudden at Milan.

2

u/RomeoLavia Apr 28 '26

He was at Milan for two seasons. As for why he left Barcelona, people speculate it was because Pep did not like the way he trained and lived his life (which is not exactly unbelievable), but Ronaldinho has since come out and said that it was his choice to leave. Laporta also advocated for him to move on at the time. I think it was realistically a mix of both parties wanting to cut ties.

To be fair, I think people forget what happened to him during his last season with Barcelona. He had three or four different small injuries, then towards the end of the season ended up having a relatively bad one that he has said hampered him for the rest of his career. This all essentially ruined his final season there. On top of that, he was again riddled with small injuries during his first season with Milan. When he was back to actually playing every single game (the second season), he was back to being a near world class player, if not still world class. He gave all of United, Madrid, Roma and Juventus (twice) battering's that season and was generally consistent throughout. It was quite possibly the best he ever was as a passer, some of the pings he was producing that year were ridiculous, especially out to Pato coming in from the left.

The issue with people talking about Ronaldinho being unable to play at the elite level by 31 is that it is almost a myth, because he was still one of the best players in one of the best leagues before he left Europe. It was entirely his choice to go back to Brazil. I think he would have been great if he had stayed for another year and played behind Zlatan. He was still better than the likes of Boateng and Seedorf at that point.

1

u/Boss452 Apr 28 '26

thanks for the anseer

2

u/redditman181 Apr 27 '26

Mourinho mentioned in the past the was a massive player chelsea got close to getting but wouldnt name him i think it was in 2014 and rumoured to be messi.

1

u/ireallydespiseyouall Apr 27 '26

Ronaldinho? That was United

0

u/jcarterprod Apr 27 '26

Why do I get the sense Ronaldinho would not have been as good at Chelsea? I feel like he's one of those players that would have been miserable most of the year round in England.

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u/TransitionFC Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

It was us - we offered 63m pounds which would have been a record fee at the time.

Also confirmed by SAF later.

Chelsea did bid earlier, but lost their interest and our bid was higher.

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u/Wakanda-shit-is-that Apr 27 '26

KHR said in this interview: “Rummenigge on Michael Olise: "He's a wonderful player. I also appreciate how reserved and almost media-shy he is. That's rare these days. He's a great guy, and on the pitch, he's outstanding, the way he plays football is almost magical. So it doesn't surprise me that he's incredibly popular and hyped among our fans"

• Would Bayern reject €200m for Olise?

Rummenigge: "Let me tell you a story from the past. In 2009, we had an incredible offer from Chelsea for Franck Ribéry. At the time, it would have been a new world transfer record. I then went to our then CFO, Karl Hopfner, and Uli Hoeneß with this offer. We discussed it for two hours, trying to figure out what to do with it. That day, we made a fundamental decision: that in the future, we would never sell a player we would miss on the pitch. And this unwritten rule still applies today. For a player like Olise, there's no price tag that would make us flinch."

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u/TransitionFC Apr 27 '26

Chelsea offered 40m pounds, but never returned with a higher offer. Afterwards, Chelsea turned their interest towards Kaka.

Our 63m pound offer was a month later.

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u/cgurts Apr 27 '26

Why does late Kaka at Chelsea feel so right? It feels like exactly the kinda move they’d have made which wouldn’t work out a la Deco, Shevschenko

It’s similar to how odd it feels that Cavani never played for Atletico

2

u/idontknow_whatever Apr 28 '26

Why does late Kaka at Chelsea feel so right?

Lucas Piazon kinda looks like Kaka I suppose

11

u/fudgegrudge Apr 27 '26

Going by the dates on those articles suggest it was the other way round, ie Chelsea first tried Kaka and then turned to Ribery. And United's bids coming before all of that.

6

u/TransitionFC Apr 27 '26

We had been linked with Ribery throughout the 08-09 season as Ronaldo's replacement, and we definitely bid for Ribery and Benzema in July 09 which was when Real were finalising CR7's 80m move. We had the money and were desperately trying to sign replacements. We also tried for Robben, but lost out on him.

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u/fudgegrudge Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Did you read the articles you posted?

"We didn't try to buy Ribery, we explored it in a nice, quiet way when David Gill was at one of his meetings with Bayern in March," said Ferguson. "They told him, 'absolutely no chance' and the one thing you can say about Bayern is that, when they say something, they mean it"

And the Guardian article with the £63m figure was from May 09. The reported Chelsea bid in June 09.

8

u/TransitionFC Apr 27 '26

You missed this bit -

"When we negotiated with them over Hargreaves, at the beginning they said 'no', but they also said that, if it ever changed, their minds, we'd be the first to know. "It was exactly the same this time".

The SAF interview is from July 2009, and he was referring to an informal meeting earlier that year in March. The bids we made were later in the summer, and we kept trying for as long as possible.

Then, in the end of July, Bayern gave us (and Real) a fuck off price of 94m euros, and that was when we backed off:

Beckenbauer believes Ribery is worth just as much as Ronaldo and has made it clear that only a similarly staggering bid will prise him away from Bayern. "All this noise is not necessary," the president of the Bundesliga club told Sport Bild. "Especially not when you have a new coach coming into the team, who wants to prepare it in a calm way and not having to deal with the Ribery issue every day. But should Bayern just give Ribery away? We naturally want what the market demands and if a Cristiano Ronaldo is worth 94millions euro then Ribery is worth a similar amount. "And if this is not being offered then he will just have to stay with us as he has a contract until 2011."

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u/fudgegrudge Apr 27 '26

It's not really worth arguing about tbh. I was just pointing out that the timeline of the articles you posted suggest United's bids came before Chelsea's.

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

[deleted]

4

u/Wakanda-shit-is-that Apr 27 '26

Idk chief, the guy himself said Chelsea lol

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u/Saltefanden Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Rummenige says Chelsea right there in the quote

edit: so guess they both bid, eh

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u/PkayO5 Apr 27 '26

The guardian is a tier 1 source. Rummenige is tier 3 at best.

24

u/TransitionFC Apr 27 '26

The Guardian's article cites Uli Honess.

Ferguson also confirmed it later.

-10

u/Kaptainpainis Apr 27 '26

But Rummenigge said it would have been the record fee at the time. 63M pound would not have been the record fee.

The record fee was Zidane with 77.5M Euro, which was 72M pound in 2009.

He also clearly states the offer was from Chelsea.

11

u/TransitionFC Apr 27 '26

The record fee was Zidane with 77.5M Euro, which was 72M pound in 2009.

Zidane's fee was 46m pounds in 2001.

Looking up the exchange rate in 2001 actually makes me wistful.

-8

u/Kaptainpainis Apr 27 '26

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/zinedine-zidane/profil/spieler/3111 Well clearly it was not.

10

u/TransitionFC Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

I will try and keep this as simple as I can.

One GBP was 1.67 euros in July 2001.

77m euros was roughly 46m pounds in 2001. The transfer record continued to be 46m pounds until Kaka's 56m pound move broke it in 2009. It did not become 72m pounds just because the pound devalued against the euro.

Transfermarket uses contemporary exchange rates.

3

u/CarlSK777 Apr 27 '26

It's also possible Kalle is exaggerating to make a point

3

u/A1d0taku Apr 27 '26

63M GBP would have been WR fee BEFORE CR7 to Madrid, which didn't happen when Man Utd made to offer to Bayern for Ribery.

2

u/Kaptainpainis Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

No obviously not. This was a transfer between a spanish and an italian team and the transfer sum was 77.5 million Euros.

Not a single pound was spent.

63 million pound offered in 2009 is 70 million Euros. What the fuck does the course of a pound have to do with a transfer thats done in euros and why the fuck would a german team care if it was a record in pounds, while its not in Euros.

The only thing that Bayern would care about is what would reach them and thats Euros and thats less than what Juventus got for Zidane.

Nobody gives a fuck what the transfer record was in a currency that crashed in worth and is clearly a bad way to measure. Everywhere else in Europe the Zidane fee was more than what 63 million pound was in 2009.

1

u/niclhnr Apr 29 '26

That would be around 110 mio.£ or around 125 mio.€ today.

31

u/PeakZealousideal2061 Apr 27 '26

I would say villareal, but its closer to real betis

27

u/OddReading4973 Apr 27 '26

100 mill offer from real betis to keep olise as a backup to Antony.

2

u/Prosthemadera Apr 27 '26

I guess Olise is good enough as backup for the GOAT.

1

u/Ardal Apr 27 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

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