Leverkusen director Rolfes confident of Tah stay amid Bayern interest

Bayer Leverkusen managing director Simon Rolfes is confident defender Jonathan Tah will remain at the club amid speculation linking him with Bayern Munich.

Tah played a key role as Bayer won an unbeaten Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal double in 2023-24, making 48 appearances in all competitions and contributing to 18 clean sheets.

The centre-back also scored six goals and recorded the highest pass completion rate (96.47%) of any Bundesliga player in his 31 league outings.

However, Tah has now entered the final 12 months of his contract at the BayArena, and with no agreement reached on fresh terms, he has been linked with Bayern.

There have also been suggestions Bayern could wait until the second half of 2024-25 before attempting to agree a free transfer for Tah, but Rolfes is not worried about losing him.

"There is nothing new and nothing that makes me doubt whether Jonathan will stay with us," said Rolfes after Saturday's DFL-Supercup win over Stuttgart.

"He's an important part of the team and emotionally, he's totally connected to every team-mate, the coach and the fans."

We go again... pic.twitter.com/VIpiAqD9p5
— Bayer 04 Leverkusen (@bayer04_en) August 17, 2024

Former Leverkusen striker Rudi Voller, who now serves as director of the German national team, also commented on Tah's future on Sunday, telling Sport1 that Bayern's interest had angered the Bundesliga champions.

"There haven't been any intensive talks on this topic for a long time, and that's what's a bit frustrating," Voller said.

"There was an enquiry a while ago, along with an offer, which Bayer Leverkusen logically rejected."

"Leverkusen is a club that doesn't like to let players leave for free. In principle, they would have liked to reach an agreement, but as of now, no agreement has been made."