Is Jérôme Boateng returning to Bayern Munich in some capacity under head coach Vincent Kompany? Why are fans up in arms about it? And what is the club saying?
The 37-year-old former Bayern and Germany center-back
recently retired from his playing career following the termination of his contract at Austrian side LASK in August — and a future in coaching seems to be on his mind.
“I’ve already spoken with [Kompany],” Kompany said in recent comments captured by Sport Bild, via @iMiaSanMia. “I can do an internship at Bayern, and I’m really looking forward to it. We just need to find the right time.”
Kompany himself spoke glowingly of his former Manchester City teammate, declining to comment on a potential role on the staff while adding that an ‘internship for a few weeks’ is something to which Boateng has an open invitation, ‘as a Bayern legend’.
The controversy
But Boateng’s off-the-field past is a topic that will always follow him.
In 2024, he was found guilty of ‘premeditated bodily harm’ against a former partner, in what appears to be the culmination of a long-running legal saga that reduces the legal verdict from what had once met the threshold for criminal conviction. Via ESPN:
The 2014 World Cup winner, who appeared in the Munich court wearing a dark blue suit, was accused of injuring his ex-girlfriend in a fight during a vacation in 2018.
The mother of his twin daughters accused Boateng of hurling a lamp at her which missed and then throwing a small box which injured her arm, before hitting her and pulling her hair.
His half-brother, former Hertha Berlin player Kevin-Prince Boateng, has long since distanced himself from Jérôme, saying “I abhor violence against women. I don’t identify with my brother’s actions and that’s why I no longer have anything to do with him.”
German outlet Der Spiegel reported last year that Jérôme Boateng’s mother had written of him: “For years, my son has been abusing women psychologically and physically” in an investigation that highlighted allegations of abuse of another former partner.
In 2023, Boateng stirred similar controversy when he trained at Bayern in the midst of a center-back injury crisis under then-head coach Thomas Tuchel, whom Boateng identified as a ‘driving force’ in his ultimately brief return to Säbener Straße. Sporting director Christoph Freund said at the time: “It’s a special situation, we had three injuries to defenders in a week, we have to compensate until the winter break. We want to look for what’s best for FC Bayern. The sporting side is the most important for us. Private matters are not a big topic for us. Everyone can have their opinion.”
As another Boateng return appears possible the fan outcry, too, has returned; this Miasanrot piece in German lays out one fan’s efforts to petition the club to stop the former star’s comeback as well as the motivations for doing so.
Der Spiegel contacted the club this week seeking comment and noted that a fan reaction at Saturday’s home Der Klassiker vs. Borussia Dortmund — one of the biggest games of the year — could be possible:
@derspiegel have contacted Bayern today to ask whether the club will allow Jérôme Boateng to have an internship under Vincent Kompany. Bayern have not responded. The club has yet to comment publicly on the matter, even though Kompany, whose word carries weight within the club, has opened the door to his former teammate, whom he describes as a ‘good friend’. The legal proceedings against Boateng have concluded. ‘Officially’, he has no criminal record. Nevertheless, there could be a reaction from some of the active fan base at the home game against Dortmund on Saturday [@derspiegel]
Club response
As of Friday, Bayern did issue a response — via a spokesperson to Sport Bild, as captured by @iMiaSanMia: “Jérôme asked the coach if he could watch our training sessions for a few days. This is not a job. If the coach offers him the opportunity and the timing works, we have nothing against it.”
On domestic violence
This seems an opportunity to stipulate what are hopefully universal values. Abuse of and violence towards intimate partners is a pervasive issue; the World Health Organization estimates that nearly 1-in-3 women worldwide have experienced it — and emphasizes that although it is by no means limited to women, ‘intimate partner and sexual violence are mostly perpetrated by men against women’.
Individual cases aside — to put aside completely the topic of what Jérôme Boateng (who in any case has already obtained a coaching license) deserves from the club, its fans, and the legal system — there is never a bad time to underscore the importance of preventing this kind of experience wherever possible. Consider the WHO-identified risk factors and root causes — which include norms and attitudes and beliefs of entitlement — and it is clear that it starts with all of us. Because norms don’t become norms without being popular, or popularly tolerated, even invisibly so.
Can those values remain compatible with renewed association? Where is the line drawn — an official job? A self-described ‘internship’? Kind words to the press while remaining silent on the issue? Further, there is a context here of famous figures, in sport or elsewhere, facing a degree of barrier to future career opportunity in public-facing jobs — particularly ones that, as in the case of sport clubs, result in their celebration and placement into positions for kids to look up to — that is inadequate. How much should Bayern consider that when weighing its competitive imperatives, for a player Kompany whose experience has said Bayern could ‘benefit’ from?
These will be questions for the club to answer — or perhaps it already has.
