Arsène Wenger has spoken out to explain exactly what happened with Bayern Munich, effectively ruling himself out of the race for their new head coach.
There has been a bit of a media rollercoaster when it comes to the Wenger-to-Bayern rumours this week. It started with reports from various sources that Wenger was the favourite for the Bayern job vacated by Niko Kovac.
Then Christian Falk of Sport BILD claimed Bayern had pulled out, whilst ESPN reported that Wenger wouldn’t accept a short-term contract.
Wenger spoke to beIN SPORTS to clarify the situation. He began by confirming he doesn’t have an agent, so any potential deal would have to go through him directly.
“My name came out of nowhere without having anything to do with this,” Wenger recalled. “On Wednesday afternoon, Rummenigge called me. I couldn’t answer at that moment, and by politeness, I called him back.
“He was in his car going to the game against Olympiacos. We talked for four to five minutes maximum, and he told me they’d assigned (Hans-Dieter) Flick to be the coach. He will manage the next two games because they play Dortmund tomorrow.
“He asked me if I would be interested because they are looking for a coach. I told him I didn’t have any thoughts about it, it needs some time to have a think about it. We decided together we will talk next week because I’m in Doha until Sunday night. This is the true story.
“I wish good luck to Bayern, and for me, the situation is settled.”
Clearly the Bayern sources decided to go in a different direction and ran with the line that they’d rejected Wenger, even though they hadn’t actually had a proper discussion over the potential appointment.
Perhaps it was all a PR move, with the club wanting to look as if they were considering all the options. If so, it’s certainly backfired on them with Wenger telling everyone the truth of the matter. Either way, it seems he’s ruled himself out of the race now.
In a way, it’s almost comforting that Bayern continue to be run by people it’s so easy to dislike, after all the nonsense their hierarchy spouted about Mesut Özil in 2018. At least there’s one constant left in modern football.