England skipper Harry Kane agreed Friday on a move to Bayern Munich of Germany’s Bundesliga from Tottenham, the English Premier League squad for which the 30-year-old forward has excelled since 2009. The transaction is reportedly valued at up to €120 million ($131 million), according to ESPN.
Kane’s 213 goals in Premier League competition rank second all-time to former Blackburn and Newcastle star Alan Shearer, who netted 260 goals across 441 matches. Kane led the Spurs with 30 goals last season, finishing six goals behind Manchester City’s Erling Haaland for the Golden Boot. Tottenham finished eighth in the EPL standings and has not finished higher than fourth over the past five seasons.
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The Associated Press reports that Kane, who guided the Three Lions to the quarterfinals of the 2022 World Cup, will become the first permanent England captain to play for a club outside England since David Beckham appeared for Real Madrid in 2006.
“We’ve been preparing for this, it’s fair to say, for a while,” Tottenham Manager Ange Postecoglou told reporters Friday before the deal became official. “It doesn’t take too much investigative work to realize that this was going to happen, so we’ve been sort of planning for it to happen anyway. … This doesn’t change things dramatically, from my perspective, in terms of what we’re trying to build.”
Kane scored four goals in a preseason match last week and received a standing ovation from the home crowd after being substituted in the second half of what turned out to be his farewell. Postecoglou said he spoke with Kane, who had one year remaining on his contract at Tottenham, about his future plans the first day he arrived after being hired in June.
“He was up front and honest, and I was the same,” Postecoglou said Friday. “You kind of get an indication there that he had made up his mind that if the clubs agreed that he would go.”
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Bayern Munich secured its 11th consecutive Bundesliga title on the final day of the 2022-23 season. The powerhouse was in the market for a goal scorer to replace Polish striker Robert Lewandowski, who inked a four-year deal with Barcelona in July 2022. Lewandowski tallied 238 goals over eight seasons with Bayern, including 41 in 2021-22. Forward Serge Gnabry led the club with a modest 14 goals last season.
Bayern could afford Kane after Senegal forward Sadio Mané joined Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr this month. Mané scored seven goals during his one injury-plagued season with Bayern after previously shining for Liverpool.