Uli Hoeneß says he personally blocked Bayern Munich’s move for Xavi Simons last summer after Vincent Kompany and Christoph Freund drove out to his house at Tegernsee to push for the transfer. Hoeneß said Kompany made the case plainly: “Uli, we need Xavi Simons.”
The Bayern powerbroker said he turned them down just as directly. “Vincent, you can have another piece of the apple pie, but you’re not getting Xavi. We want you to play the young players,” Hoeneß said, adding that the club chose to back its own talent instead of another expensive signing.
The decision matters because it shaped one of Bayern’s biggest summer calls. Hoeneß said there were arguments inside the club about spending another €100-150m on major signings, but the older voices prevailed. Bayern, he said, wanted to create room for young players rather than keep adding to an already crowded squad.
That stance has since become easier to defend. Kompany has given a debut to a record number of teenagers this season, and Lennart Karl has burst onto the scene. The message from the top was not just about saving money; it was about forcing the club to trust the next wave.
Simons, meanwhile, went to Tottenham Hotspur in a deal worth around €65m, but he has struggled since the move. Tottenham are now staring down the barrel of relegation in the Premier League, which makes Bayern’s summer refusal look less like a gamble and more like a line they were determined not to cross.
Hoeneß’s version of events leaves Bayern’s transfer debate in sharp relief. One side wanted another heavy outlay for a marquee player. The other wanted to protect space for the kids. For now, the kids are playing, and Xavi Simons is somewhere else entirely.
