Max Eberl Riffs on the Balancing Act with Contract Extensions, Squad Planning at Bayern Munich

Munich — Max Eberl has been in the Bundesliga’s engine room for more than a decade, but even he admits the brief handed to him at Bayern Munich can feel like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube while riding a unicycle. Tasked with refreshing an ageing squad, trimming a wage bill that has ballooned past the €300 million mark and still keep the club in the Champions-League elite, the 50-year-old sporting director calls the process “making the impossible possible.”

The impossible, in 2024 terms, begins with what Eberl labels “internal transfers.” The new deal struck for Dayot Upamecano — a contract that effectively doubled the French centre-back’s salary — is the latest example of a trend that has turned routine extensions into eight-figure commitments. “These internal transfers can also be expensive, especially when I’m talking about top players,” Eberl told Munich daily Tz. “But then you always have to draw comparisons.”

The comparison he reached for was Jérémy Jacquet, the 20-year-old Ligue 1 defender who will join Liverpool this summer after 19 top-flight appearances. Bayern tracked the France U-21 international for months, yet Eberl balked at the €70 million valuation while Upamecano’s extension was on the table. “That would be ‘the other path’,” he said, hinting that the club’s supervisory board ultimately decides which door opens. “If they tell me, ‘Max, that’s too expensive, then that’s no problem for me’, we’ll just have to go down that other path. But then we have to be clear that we’ll have to buy a different player — if we want to maintain the same quality — who might cost 50, 60 or 70 million euros.”

The Upamecano file landed on Eberl’s desk only weeks after he finalised extensions for Joshua Kimmich, Alphonso Davies and Jamal Musiala last term, all while the club explored the feasibility of a record swoop for Florian Wirtz that never materialised. Each renewal nudged the payroll upward, the opposite of the internal mandate to “reduce the overall wage bill,” a directive shared by Eberl, sporting director Christoph Freund and CFO Jan-Christian Dreesen.

Bayern’s hierarchy once drew a red line at €100 million transfers, a stance abandoned as Neymar’s 2017 €222 million switch to Paris Saint-Germain reset the market. Now, Eberl argues, even teenagers with a single season of top-tier experience arrive with nine-figure asking prices, forcing the club to weigh potential against proven Bundesliga reliability. “Knowing full well that the player might only be 19 or 20 years old and not yet at the top European level,” he noted, the gamble is as financial as it is sporting.

The paradox is clear: improve the squad, curb spending, compete for every trophy. Eberl, who built competitive sides on tighter budgets at both RB Leipzig and Borussia Mönchengladbach, insists he is comfortable with the tension. “I’ll do my part, the part that’s expected of me, and then they have to tell me whether they agree or not. That’s the conversation we need to have.”

For now, those conversations will soon turn to Harry Kane, whose deal still has years to run but whose future market value will be monitored as closely as his goal return. Meanwhile, Raphaël Guerreiro’s likely departure will free additional wages, a reminder that every slot in the salary spreadsheet is negotiated against the backdrop of Financial Fair Play and Bayern’s own red-line economics.

As the transfer window approaches, Eberl’s balancing act will move from boardroom whiteboards to the headlines. Whether the club walks the tightrope with another blockbuster extension or pivots toward the next 19-year-old prodigy, the sporting director says he is ready for either route — provided the maths add up and the trophies keep coming.