Lewandowski wants €18 million to stay at Bayern

It’s become clear in recent months that Robert Lewandowski wants to sign for Real Madrid. What’s more, the club have chosen him as their galáctico signing for next season and believe that the FIFA ban, which was provisionally suspended last week, will not prevent them from bringing in new players this summer. Bayern, unsurprisingly, are keen to tie him up to a new long-term contract. His current deal expires in 2019.

The next steps for the Polish striker and his agent Cezary Kucharski are clear. First they’ll sit down with Bayern President Karl-Heinz Rummenigge to negotiate what could very likely be the biggest contract of his career. Well aware of Bayern’s eagerness to keep him, the player and his agent will demand €18 million per season (his current contract pays him €10 million), the figure he’d expect to be paid at Real Madrid. Bayern would, in return for such a high salary, omit a release clause from the contract, fearful that another club might go for broke and prise him away. Lewandowski’s current contract doesn’t feature a release clause which is why Madrid are being forced to negotiate.  

Kucharski and Lewandowski, who joined Bayern in 2014 on a free transfer from Borussia Dortmund, already reached out to the club last November to renegotiate his deal only to be told that it wasn’t the time. But interest from Spain has made Bayern change tune and a meeting will be held “very soon,” according to a source close to the negotiations. The fact that the two parties will sit down to talk doesn’t mean that Real Madrid are out of the equation, however. Lewandowski wants to play at the Bernabéu, and his contract renegotiation with Bayern is simply a way of getting there. But, if his move to the Spanish capital falls through, he will at least have his future secured.

It won’t be straightforward, of course. “I’d prefer not to talk about Madrid, it’s not an easy situation for me,” Lewandowski told AS last month. Rummenigge had previously sent a very clear message to Real Madrid after AS published pictures of Kucharski sat in the President’s Box at the Bernabéu for a league match in early December: “Lewandowski still has three and a half years left on his contract, what Madrid want is irrelevant…”

Recent developments around Europe could also throw a spanner into the works. The British press have begun to speculate that the Pole’s future could in fact lie in the Premier League in a Manchester City shirt. Pep Guardiola, his current boss who will take over at City in the summer, has already told the club’s Director of Football Txiki Begiristain that the squad needs up to 5 new starters and it is rumoured that he could try to bring his star striker along with him. Having said that, Sergio Agüero is the league’s most prolific goal scorer and signing a new striker might not necessarily be a priority.

Clearly Lewandowski himself has preferences when it comes to his future. He wants to play for Real Madrid. In reality, however, it all depends on Bayern. With no release clause in his contract, any club that wants the Polish superstar will have to negotiate with Rummenigge and company…