Thomas Muller’s Bayern Munich future and the uncomfortable conclusion of an iconic career

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What to do about Thomas Muller’s contract?

That is a question which Bayern Munich have never wanted to have to answer but the very issue that has descended upon the club in recent weeks.

Muller’s current deal will end this summer. He will turn 36 in September and has played 870 Bundesliga minutes this season. There is no question that his prime is long over, nor that the sporting argument for a renewal is weak. As is the economic one. Bonuses included, Muller is paid roughly €17million (£14.2m; $18m) each year, and with Bayern eager to reduce their wage bill, it’s an expense that can not really be rationalised.

The trouble is that this is not a black-and-white or dispassionate situation.

Muller is modern Bayern. Not just because he has made more appearances for the club than any other player in history or because he has won the Bundesliga 12 times and the Champions League twice. Muller has more dimensions than that.

Part footballer, part local idea. A local boy raised in the Bavarian countryside, he ground his way to stardom, exhausting his talent but remaining strikingly unaffected by wealth and fame. If this were a different century, his portrait would be hanging in every school, municipal building and restaurant in the region.

So Bayern are not just dealing with an ageing player; Muller is an institution and inseparable from the club he plays for. As such, the way he is treated matters.

Max Eberl, the board member for sport, has spoken about this publicly. Back in January, a contract extension sounded like a formality and seemingly hinged on simply whether Muller wanted to continue his career.

“He’s an iconic figure at FC Bayern and will remain so,” Eberl said in a press conference.

“He has experienced everything with this club. He’s extremely important to us. The talks with Thomas will certainly be very brief. There will be no lengthy negotiations. It’s simply a question: ‘Do you still want to continue, or don’t you?’”

The answer to whether Muller wants to continue seems to be a resounding ‘yes’. Perhaps that was not the answer Bayern were looking for because, as the weeks have passed, the caveats have begun to appear.

“The important thing is that we come to a decision together that is best for everyone,” Eberl said last week.

“Thomas Muller is an icon for FC Bayern. It’s as much about his thoughts on how he sees his role as it is about our thoughts. And, of course, you always have to consider the financial aspects of something like this.”

Muller is in his 24th season as a Bayern Munich player (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

In March, at an early screening of Muller’s Amazon documentary, One of a Kind, Uli Hoeness, Bayern’s honorary president, was asked about Muller’s future.

Discussing whether he could see him ascend into a non-playing role at the club — which has long been expected to be Muller’s post-retirement avenue — Hoeness said he would “welcome it”.

“I think Thomas is suited to any job at Bayern with a certain amount of time to get used to it,” he said.

Most would agree. Few understand the environment as well as Muller and, symbolically, almost nobody carries as much footballing weight within it.

Journalists who have covered Bayern during this era will tell you that Muller is always the player to speak and stand in front of a camera, even when form is bad and the questions are uncomfortable. He is the person who will stop to sign autographs on his way in and out of Sabener Strasse training ground, too, and who will take photographs with supporters, even when it’s raining and even when he is not in the mood. In fact, he is the Bayern player who makes sure that others do that too and that they remember their duty to their community.

He is a statesman. On the pitch, he has always played with the frantic intensity of someone who believes that his career could be taken away. Off it, he carries himself more calmly, with a plainspoken earthiness that should be an asset for Bayern for many more decades, even beyond the memory of his playing career.

Eberl is one of the Bayern executives involved in resolving Muller’s future (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)

When Hoeness was speaking at that documentary premiere in Munich, it was the week before the last round of contract talks were due to take place and it was perhaps towards that future that he was hoping to nudge Muller.

“A Thomas Muller who is constantly sitting on the bench can’t be a solution,” he said, because it would be “unbefitting a great career”.

It’s easy to disagree. If Muller wanted to spend his final months as a club conscience, setting standards on the training ground and from the sidelines, then that would be his prerogative and not in any way to the detriment of what he has contributed to Bayern over the years. His club have a young, pliable core emerging and who better than Muller to put an arm around the shoulders of Aleksandar Pavlovic, Jamal Musiala, Tom Bischof and Michael Olise?

Nobody — but what is that worth?

Everybody will want a smoother resolution to this. Every day now, German sports dailies are carrying an update to this story or employing a talking head to give their opinion on it. It is unseemly. An ugly ellipsis.

It’s disheartening, too. Most fans are willing to indulge their own naivety in this situation and believe that, beyond a certain point, after a career that has been so decorated and provided football with so much, a player is owed the opportunity to leave on their own terms. They should decide how and when they depart the stage.

But the game does not work like that. It’s never that romantic. Barcelona even told Lionel Messi that it was time to go eventually.

And now, unthinkable as this has always been, it might be time for Bayern and Thomas Muller to part ways. A new contract has yet to be offered. A final meeting between the club and player is scheduled for this week, at which a decision will be made and — hopefully — a better way to say goodbye will be agreed upon.

(Top photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)

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