Herbert Hainer did not sign Erling Haaland on Saturday. He just made sure no one at Bayern Munich can rule it out.

Asked on Bild TV what Bayern would do if Manchester City were punished for the Premier League breaches upheld by an independent commission in late September, the Bayern chairman left the door deliberately ajar.

“If we’re talking about a point several years from now, we would look at the situation again,” Hainer told the broadcaster, in comments carried by Goal.

Hainer puts a timeline on it: a few years

Before the signal to the market came the obligatory nod to the players already in Munich.

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“We have an excellent attack with Michael Olise, Harry Kane and Luis Díaz. We scored more than 120 goals last season and are extremely well equipped up front,” Hainer said, according to AfricaSoccer.

The praise is a hedge, not a shut door. In the German version of the interview, which fcbinside carries, Hainer said the attacking line was in order for the moment and the situation would be reviewed later.

Kane’s contract runs to 2027

The window Hainer named matters because Kane’s deal runs until the summer of 2027. Bayern are openly pursuing an early extension that is not yet signed, as confirmed by the same interview, which means the “in a few years” horizon lines up with the end of the Englishman’s current contract rather than its middle.

That is the subtext of the comment. Bayern are not shopping for a Kane replacement. They are naming a candidate for the slot after him.

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City’s sanction is the trigger

The reason the question was put to Hainer at all sits in Manchester. An independent commission ruled on 29 September that City had breached Premier League financial rules on 114 of 115 charges across the seasons from 2009-10 to 2017-18. The club lodged an appeal on 1 October, and a separate sanctions hearing has not been scheduled; punishments on the table run from a points deduction to expulsion from the Premier League.

No sanction has been imposed yet, and Haaland is under contract at City. But Hainer’s “we would look at the situation again” is now part of the record while the hearing dates are drawn up.

Pimenta is said to be making calls

Behind the chairman’s public line, there is reporting that the groundwork has already begun. Sport.de reports, carrying Spanish coverage, that Haaland’s agent Rafaela Pimenta has been in contact with Bayern as well as Barcelona, and has shared the figures that would move her client, a transfer fee and a salary, depending on how the City hearing lands.

The German outlet frames any move as a 2027 or 2028 question, not a January one. The next concrete step is the sanctions hearing in Manchester.

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