Max Eberl’s future as board member for sport at Bayern Munich has been heavily discussed in recent times. With a contract that expires in 2027 and a lack of clear public support from Bayern’s supervisory board, whether or not the former Borussia Mönchengladbach sporting director will remain in Munich even beyond the summer seems genuinely in doubt. This talk followed a very good season at Bayern, which looked to set to end in a double with a final in the DFB-Pokal against VFB Stuttgart coming up after
having already secured the Bundesliga title.
Despite the uncertainty about his future, Eberl seemed upbeat ahead of the game. Appearing in a 30 minute live interview with Bild the day before the Pokal final, he showed belief in himself and the club’s current direction.
“Last summer, people kept saying the whole time that my future was hanging by a thread. I simply do my job and want to do it as well as possible,” the former Bayern academy player explained (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). “Bayern is my club. Despite all the complexity, we are on a very, very good path. And then the supervisory board will make its’ decision.”
FC Hollywood struck again, though. On the day of Bayern’s DFB-Pokal final against Stuttgart, an Uli Hoeneß interview with German news website Der Spiegel was released.
In this interview, among other topics, Bayern’s honorary president discussed board member for sport Eberl’s future at the club and a potential extension to Eberl’s contract, which expires in 2027. Hoeneß made it clear that, despite the successful 2025/26 season Bayern had experienced which Eberl had played a major role in, he is far from assured of getting a new contract:
“Today the chances of an extension are 60-40. There are still doubts,” Hoeneß revealed (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). “Board members can only negotiate or extend their contracts a year before the contract expires. I don’t want to go into details now; I’ll leave that to our discussions in the supervisory board. The supervisory board meeting in August will have to decide whether Max Eberl is the manager who should lead FC Bayern into the future. But he has played a major role in our success this season.”
After Bayern emerged 3-0 victors against Stuttgart to lift the DFB-Pokal, Eberl was immediately asked by German news site Bild — of course, it would be them to focus on the drama over the football — about Hoeneß’s statement.
“I was very surprised by that. I want to do my job, I want to convince people with my work. What we’ve achieved this season, as a team, as a club – that speaks for itself. You can have doubts, that’s perfectly legitimate. Then we can talk about it. The numbers are there. It doesn’t matter to me right now, we’ve had a very good season with the double. We actually talk about it all the time, we talked yesterday, we talked today. That’s why the 60-40 (chances of an extension) was surprising to me,” Eberl admitted (again captured by @iMiaSanMia), before going on to critique the timing of Hoeneß’s interview.
“I actually developed a thick skin. But I didn’t think it was the right time to do that today on a final day. The nice thing is: it didn’t affect the team in the slightest. We’re a united group that simply wants to play football, that simply wants to be successful. The team did that brilliantly again today.”
Eberl followed up talk about his future during a pitch side interview, revealing (as captured by @iMiaSanMia) that he is prepared for any outcome.
“If they [supervisory board] tell me: ‘we don’t want to extend your contract but you can continue [until 2027]’, then I’ll continue to work the same way I did in the past couple of years. If they tell me: ‘we want to extend your contract’, then we’ll talk about it. If they tell me: ‘We don’t want you to continue’, then I’ll go home. My life will go on.”
He sounded less certain of his continued future at Bayern than he did the day before. Certainly, being put into such a spotlight by one’s superior the day of a final is never easy. Bayern’s previous board member for sport, Hasan “Brazzo” Salihamidžić, knows the difficulty of working in this position and expressed his sympathy for the difficult situation.
“I had to go through that too. At FC Bayern, you have to expect anything, especially when Uli Hoeneß, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, and Herbert Hainer are there. There’s always an interview you don’t expect. But that’s just how it is at Bayern, and that’s how the guys are. Uli has been very active in the media in recent weeks, and he always reserves that right. Therefore, as sporting director of FC Bayern, you simply have to live with it,” the 2001 Champions League winner said (final time: as captured by @iMiaSanMia).
But Brazzo also wanted to give much needed context for the interview: It was not meant to be release on the day of the final. “The interview was conducted on Friday, I happen to know that. Not that I want to defend Uli – but knowing him as I do, he didn’t know it would be broadcast on Saturday, the day of the final. I’m sure of that. And that’s why he would now say that it was perhaps a bit unfortunate. Max handled it very, very well, the team played superbly – that’s why Uli will be happy that nothing negative happened because of him.”
One cannot win a double at Bayern without serious controversy. It’s the Hollywood way.
If you are looking for more Bayern Munich and German national team coverage, check out the latest episodes of Bavarian Podcast Works, which you can get on Acast, Spotify, Apple, or any leading podcast distributor…
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