João Palhinha remains one of FC Bayern’s biggest transfer headaches this summer. The Munich club is desperate to sell the Portuguese midfielder, but so far no potential buyer has been willing to pay the asking price. Sporting director Max Eberl is bearing the brunt of this deadlock.
Officials at Säbener Straße are working flat out to further trim the roster and generate additional revenue. At the top of the list of players to be sold is João Palhinha, who no longer plays a key role in Vincent Kompany’s sporting plans.
As SPORT1 reports, selling the 31-year-old is actually the top internal priority—even ahead of potential departures by Bryan Zaragoza or Sacha Boey. The pressure on Max Eberl is correspondingly high, as he is expected to remove the Portuguese player from the payroll as soon as possible.
Interestingly, Palhinha himself can certainly imagine staying in Munich.
Bayern remains firm on the transfer fee
According to information from SPORT1, Bayern had been firmly convinced back in the spring that Tottenham Hotspur would exercise the agreed-upon purchase option of around 30 million euros. However, the London club wanted to renegotiate the price.
Munich wouldn’t go along with that. The result: Palhinha returned to Säbener Straße after his loan.
Other interested clubs have also so far shied away from the asking price. Neither Benfica Lisbon nor Sporting Lisbon is reportedly willing to pay the 30 million euros demanded. The same apparently applies to Aston Villa, which is also hoping for some flexibility from FC Bayern.
Pressure on Eberl is mounting
For Max Eberl, the Palhinha saga is increasingly turning into a test of his mettle. The sporting director has already faced criticism in the past after Kingsley Coman moved to Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2025 for around 25 million euros. Internally, club officials had hoped for a higher transfer fee at the time.
The situation with Palhinha is now proving similarly difficult. Although Bayern has publicly signaled on several occasions that it would like to sell the midfielder, it has so far stuck to its asking price.
Just this past weekend, sporting director Christoph Freund made it clear that Palhinha would not play “a major role” in the club’s sporting plans. This statement is likely to have been noted by potential buyers and does little to improve Munich’s negotiating position.
If FC Bayern does not lower its asking price, the transfer could drag on even longer. This would be problematic for Eberl, as additional revenue is considered a prerequisite for the record champion to be able to make further moves in the transfer market this summer.