The 74-year-old honorary president spoke to Bild on the sidelines of the Bavarian Sports Awards in Munich on Saturday evening, hours after Neuer’s heavy touch in the opening seconds at FC Augsburg handed the hosts a 2-2 draw and dragged Bayern into a weekend of goalkeeping headlines.
Asked whether Neuer, now 40, was running out of time at the top, the answer was blunt.
“No, not at all. Everyone is allowed to make a mistake once in a while,” Hoeness told Bild, in quotes carried by Goal.com.
He then widened the field of fire.
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“And I find the same discussion around Joshua Kimmich to be totally ridiculous. The players who are being hyped up now must first become regular starters at their clubs.”
An eight-second gift at Augsburg
The error that framed Hoeness’s intervention was glaring. Eight seconds into Saturday’s match, Neuer took a heavy touch after a backpass from Luis Díaz, the ball ricocheted off Augsburg midfielder Robin Fellhauer and rolled into an empty net. ESPN logged it as the fastest goal in Bundesliga history.
Bayern needed Ismael Saibari and substitute Nathaniel Brown to recover the point after Rodrigo Ribeiro had put Augsburg back in front in the second half.
Neuer accepted the blame himself after the final whistle, telling reporters he had misread the pressure from two Augsburg players and should have cleared the ball more cleanly.
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Kompany went first
Hoeness did not get to the Kimmich debate first. His head coach had already pushed back on calls to strip the Germany international of his starting role at national-team level.
“I often try to stay out of these mini-debates because that’s all they are,” Vincent Kompany told Sky and RTL. “And no, I’m not influenced by what happens with the national team. I think it’s the other way around, the national team is influenced by what happens at the club.”
Kompany, who was himself honoured at the Bavarian Sports Awards ceremony, was reacting to a round of commentary that had questioned whether Germany could function better in midfield without Kimmich. Sporting director Max Eberl has echoed Kompany in calling the criticism “absurd”.
The target behind the “hyped” line
Hoeness did not name names when he spoke of players being “hyped up,” but the Munich context pointed at two Bayern reserves pushing for Germany recognition: 23-year-old goalkeeper Jonas Urbig and midfielder Tom Bischof. Neither currently has a regular starting slot at Säbener Strasse.
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Hoeness also took aim at the fixture calendar, labeling the Nations League “the joke of the year” and the current two-week international break “a disaster” so soon after the Bundesliga season began.
Bayern return to Bundesliga action at home to RB Leipzig on Saturday 17 October.
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