LONDON: England captain Harry Kane says his interest in returning to the Premier League has cooled because he is “fully all in” on Bayern Munich.
The 32-year-old Kane joined Bayern from Tottenham in the summer of 2023 and is under contract there until the summer of 2027.
The striker said that when leaving Spurs, he expected “for sure” that would one day return to English soccer. He’s no longer certain about that.
“In terms of staying longer (at Bayern), I could definitely see that,” said Kane, who has reported for England duty ahead of a friendly with Wales on Thursday and a World Cup qualifier in Latvia on Oct. 14. “I spoke openly a couple of weeks ago that I have not had those conversations with Bayern yet, but if they were to arise I would be willing to talk and have an honest conversation.
“Obviously it depends on how the next year or so goes and what we achieve together. Right now, I would say we are in a fantastic moment and I am not thinking about anything else. In terms of the Premier League, I don’t know — if you had asked me when I first left to go to Bayern, I would have said for sure I would come back. Now I have been there a couple of years I would probably say that has gone down a little bit, but I wouldn’t say I would never go back.”
Kane has scored 11 goals in his first six games in the Bundesliga, with Bayern taking a maximum 18 points.
Bayern sporting director Christoph Freund recently said the team is “probably witnessing the best version of Harry Kane there has ever been.”
“What I have learnt in my career is that different opportunities and different timings happen and things fall in place,” Kane said. “Going back to my first point with Bayern right now I am fully all in with Bayern.”
Kane won his first major trophy at club level last season when Bayern won the league and he said that’s “given me more motivation to do more and be better.”
“I think I’ve shown that this year,” he said. “I was interested in how I would feel after winning a trophy. Obviously, there’s still a lot more I want to achieve in terms of other trophies and bigger trophies for sure.
“But I think it was always just, in my head, ‘What I was going to feel like after I did achieve winning my first one?’ But for sure, I pushed myself the other way, in terms of being even better, eating even cleaner, doing more gym. Just trying to get the most out of what I’ve got right now.”
Kane cools interest in Premier League return and is ‘fully all in’ on Bayern
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Kane cools interest in Premier League return and is ‘fully all in’ on Bayern
- The 32-year-old Kane joined Bayern from Tottenham in the summer of 2023 and is under contract there until the summer of 2027
- The striker said that when leaving Spurs he expected “for sure” that would one day return to English soccer
Turkiye orders arrest of 29 footballers in betting scandal
- Among the players, 27 are suspected of having bet on matches involving their own teams, prosecutors said
- One was Metehan Baltaci, who plays for reigning Turkish champions Galatasaray
ISTANBUL: Istanbul prosecutors on Friday ordered the arrest of 46 people, among them 29 football players, as part of a sprawling investigation into illegal betting on Turkish matches.
Among the players, 27 are suspected of having bet on matches involving their own teams, the public prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
One was Metehan Baltaci, who plays for reigning Turkish champions Galatasaray, it said. Earlier this month, he had been suspended for nine months over the betting scandal.
The investigation has rocked Turkish football, with six referees placed in pre-trial detention on November 10, along with the president of Eyupspor, a club in Turkiye’s top Super Lig division.
Prosecutors did not identify the other 26 players suspected of bets involving their own teams, but said Mert Hakan Yandas, who plays for Fenerbahce, another major Istanbul club, had placed bets through someone else’s account.
The prosecutor’s office said police had so far detained 35 of the 46 people named in the arrest order. Five were known to be currently abroad, it said.
- Zero goal attempts -
Two club presidents were among those targeted by the order for “attempting to influence the outcome” of a match between their two third-division teams in the 2023-2024 season, the statement said.
The match had caught the attention of investigators because neither side had even made one attempt to score a goal, Turkish media reported, with several newspapers saying that was where the entire investigation began.
Six other suspects, one of them a player, are accused of conspiring to influence the result of a second-division clash between Umraniyespor and Giresunspor in December 2023.
A first-division referee, the ex-president of second-division side Adana Demirspor, and a well-known football commentator and his wife were also targeted for “suspect financial transactions” in their bank accounts.
So far, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) — which has said it wants to “clean up” the beautiful game in Turkiye — has suspended more than 1,000 players, 25 of them from the Super Lig, with the sanctions ranging from 45 days to 12 months.
Only one was a foreign national — Konyaspor’s Senegalese winger Alassane Ndao, who was suspended for 12 months.
In October, the TFF suspended nearly 150 referees for betting on matches, all of whom have since been dismissed.
