Why Franck Ribery is Staying With Bayern Munich

Charlie Klein

Over the past few weeks of the summer transfer window in European Football, there has been much speculation over the future of French enchanteur Franck Ribery. The constant will he won't he from various different reports from different sporting publications to me is rather silly.

The two more important elements to whether a player leaves his club are these: His club is willing to sell and the player wants to leave. Bayern have been steadfast in their desire to keep Ribery, and why wouldn't they? Ribery is under contract until 2011 and Bayern are not a small insignificant club that when the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona come calling that they feel at all pressured to accede to their demands.

Franz Beckenbauer, pretty much the man of all things Bayern, commented, "I rate Ribery alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and (Lionel) Messi as the best footballers in the world at present." Beckenbauer wants to see this issue put to bed for the long term. "I can see only two solutions: Ribery extends his contract so the issue is dealt with or we release him."

Franck Ribery wants to play for Bayern next season. He said, "I will see how my situation is going to develop. Honestly, I don't know - my situation isn't easy to deal with. I am under contract until 2011 with Bayern, I am fine over there. I'm not someone who likes to clash - I have spent two good years at Bayern. We will see how everything turns out."

People have criticised the amount of money that Bayern want in order to even consider selling their best player. Some of this criticism is legitimate, but such arguments have little to do with the player himself. Bayern are right in wanting to get the most for their player. Furthermore, they were the only big club willing to sign Ribery after the 2006 World Cup. It was a popular idea at the tiem that Ribery was not good enough or was not a proven commodity and the teams that are interested in him now were not at that time. Bayern deserve some loyalty from Ribery for investing in him.

Bayern have also gone out and strengthened their squad in the window. Ribery said that he wanted the Bavarian outfit to bring in more talent in order for him to remain in Germany. So far Bayern have done that, signing Mario Gomez from Stuttgart (the third leading scorer in the Bundesliga), Ivica Olic (10 goals last season) from HSV, Anatoliy Tymoshuk of Zenit St. Petersburg (holding midfield), and Danijel Pranjic of Heerenveen (midfielder). A lot of talent heading for Munich along with Manuel Neuer, Shalke 04's brilliant goalkeeper, being rumoured to sign for the Bavarian Giants.

So if you asked me, Ribery is a Bayern player next season, unless someone meets Bayern general manager Uli Hoeness's ridiculous valuation.