Kahn wants to keep Bayern top

FORMER Bayern Munich Oliver Kahn is aiming to maintain the club’s leading role in German football as he takes up a new challenge as a member of the management board.

“If you look at the development of recent years, FC Bayern can only be about being No. 1 everywhere. The goal is to continue the club’s success story… and maybe add a little more. That suits me and my character,” he said at his unveiling as new board member yesterday.

Kahn was known for his emotions on the pitch during a 14-year playing career at Bayern following his transfer from Schalke, but football fans will be experiencing a different side to the now 50-year-old former player, who now has a degree in business administration and has worked as a football analyst on German television.

“There will be no sliding tackles through the meeting rooms. One thing is at the fore in the club: We want to offer fans excellent football. For this, economic conditions must be created. High-class worldclass

football and the aspiration to be one in all areas, that’s what I and all of us have in mind. That is the claim of FC Bayern,” he said.

Kahn said the club’s youth team work would also be an important area for him with “the goal of becoming the absolute top” at youth level for the future. “It must be possible to introduce young players to the professional team and to get identification figures. We want to create a game philosophy that is absolutely Bayern-like,” he said.

The former Germany goalkeeper has returned to the club some 12 years after his playing retirement in 2008 and is being groomed to succeed Karl-Heinz Rummenigge as club chairman at the end of 2021.

Kahn’s immediate aim will be win an eighth successive Bundesliga title and challenge for the Champions League crown, which Bayern last won in 2013. Kahn was a Champions League winner with Bayern in 2001. He joins with Bayern lying third in the Bundesliga, four points adrift of leaders RB Leipzig and two behind Borussia Moenchengladbach. They face Chelsea in the last 16 of the Champions League.

“We don’t want to let the championship go,” he said. “Our series is incredible, champions seven times in a row. This is something for eternity - but so is eight times but we don’t just want to be champions. The performance in the Champions League (this season) has been outstanding. Everything is possible.” – dpa