Robert Lewandowski invited a whirlwind of tabloid bullhonky upon himself recently when, in the wake of PSG splurging to sign Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, he publicly criticised Bayern Munich for failing to match their state-financed Champions League rivals in the money-frittering stakes this summer.
Speaking to Spiegel Online, the Polish striker also moaned about Bayern’s knackering close-season schedule, including the club’s now mandatory pre-season tour of Asia, which he admonished as “lacking marketing value”.
To date, Bayern has never paid more than around €40million for a player.
In international (continental) football, that has long since been a figure which is only average, rather than at the top.
Lewandowski’s comments were duly rebuked by Bayern chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who answered back via a bitchy quip in BILD:
If he is complaining about the Asian tour that we went on, then he should know that his supposed dream club Real Madrid spent 24 days travelling in the heat, twice as long as we did.
The mere mention of Real Madrid was enough for the football rumour mill to fart into life, with myriad outlets immediately linked the “freshly unsettled” Lewandowski with a move to the Bernabeu… again.
However, when pressed about the rumours by the superbly named Bayerischen Rundfunk radio station, the 29-year-old moved quickly to nix the tittle-tattle:
I don’t have to comment every time on every bit of nonsense, whether it means something or not, and I don’t have to say something about this bullsh*t.
Sounds fairly definitive.
That should definitely nip all the relentless speculation and conjecture in the bud.