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The head of the multiple German champion Munich club stated that the long-term target of the English Premier League leader club, Owen Hargreaves, will not be sold at the player transfer market that opened in January.
The Bayern club, currently occupying third place in the Bundesliga, has valued its English legionnaire at 20 million pounds sterling, but would like to keep the 25-year-old footballer until the end of this season.
"Hargreaves will definitely not leave our squad this winter. As time goes on, we will see," said Bayern's general director Uli Hoeness to the newspaper "Welt am Sonntag."
Earlier this week, the president of Bayern's team, Franz Beckenbauer, stated that if Manchester United's offer reaches approximately 20 million pounds sterling, the club will "seriously consider" it.
O.Hargreaves has been linked with the English giant Manchester United since the summer, while the player himself does not hide his desire to play for the "Red Devils" team.
However, the German club is preventing the transfer. They stated that they are not planning to sell the defender who signed a new contract with Bayern last season and committed to staying in the club until 2010.
"It is normal for us to want to keep a player who recently extended his contract and who wants to move to another club just because they will pay him a higher salary," said F. Beckenbauer.
Meanwhile, the Englishman denies the president's statements and stated that his desire to play in the Premier League is not motivated by money.
"It's an opportunity to test my skills in a different league where I have never played before. England is a country where I represent the national team and where my family lives," said O. Hargreaves. - "It's not that I say I want to move to Milan or Inter Milan because they will pay me more money."
"I want to go to England because my family is located there. My parents and brothers are in Canada, but relatives from my father's side live in Bolton, and those from my mother's side are in the town of Rhyll in North Wales," added the Englishman. - "People don't understand that. They think I'm half German, but I'm not. I grew up in a British family, it just happened in Canada."
In the match against "Arminia" in September, the Englishman fractured his leg and had to miss almost the entire first part of the season. It is believed that the Englishman, who hoped to join Bayern in January, has not fully recovered from the injury and is unable to train at full strength.
Therefore, O. Hargreaves is unlikely to help the Bayern team, which will face Borussia Dortmund on January 26th after the winter break in the country's championship.
Currently, the Bayern club is at the training base in Dubai, and the Englishman hopes to join his teammates before the Bundesliga championship resumes. However, the doctors' prognosis is more skeptical - they believe that the defender's injury is not healing as quickly as expected.
