Last week, a story emerged detailing that Bayern Munich board member for sport Max Eberl attempted to get more money out of Tottenham Hotspur than the English club was ever going to pay for João Palhinha.
At the time, we only knew the report of what happened, but not why it happened. Sport1 reporters Johannes Vehren and Stefan Kumberger might have uncovered why Eberl did not show a little more flexibility:
According to multiple media reports, Tottenham’s bosses would have been willing to sign him for
a lower transfer fee. However, Bayern’s sporting director Max Eberl stood firm, so the deal ultimately fell through.
The 52-year-old is in a bind, because according to SPORT1, selling him is the top priority internally – even before Boey or Bryan Zaragoza. After all, Bayern paid around €50 million for the midfielder two years ago, who is also said to be earning a salary of around €10 million.
Eberl was internally criticized after Kingsley Coman’s transfer to Al-Nassr in the summer of 2025 for selling the Frenchman for too low a transfer fee. He is determined to avoid a similar mistake with Palhinha.
For this reason, the Bayern boss remained firm in negotiations with Tottenham – a point on which he may have overplayed his hand?
It seems very unlikely that Palhinha is going to garner a big money offer from any club for Palhinha — so, Bayern Munich might have very little chance of getting the offer it wants for the Portuguese midfielder. However, Eberl should not be punished for the bad deal. While he was the executive who initially signed off on it in 2024, the agreement on a move actually pre-dated his arrival.
In 2023, Bayern Munich went hard after Palhinha when Thomas Tuchel was — briefly — calling the shots in the wake of the sacking of Hasan Salihamidžić and before Christoph Freund was named sporting director. Of course, Eberl would not ink a deal with the Bavarians until the following winter.
That pursuit in 2023 failed at the very last minute and the rumor was that Bayern Munich wanted to make good on its promise to the midfielder. Legitimate information or not, the transfer did eventually go through and it was doomed from the beginning as Palhinha was never a fit for what Bayern Munich head coach Vincent Kompany wanted from his midfield.
Now, Bayern Munich needs to sell him and the market is not exactly booming for him.
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