Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has seemingly ruled out signing Arsenal star Alexis Sanchez by claiming that his side must focus on building around youth, rather than experience.
France prospect completes Man Utd move
The Bundesliga champions have been heavily linked with a potential move for the Chilean in recent months, although Manchester City appear to be in the driving seat to secure his signature.
Pep Guardiola’s side may have a clearer run at the attacker than first thought, though, with Hoeness insistent that Bayern continue their strategy of buying young players.
"Everyone is talking about building a new team and how Bayern Munich's future must be shaped," he told Kicker.
"And then Bayern does exactly that - signs young players between 20 and 22 - and is criticised once again."
He added, alluding to rumours of interest in Arsenal's Alexis: "But you can't build a new team with €100 million transfers for 29 and 30-year-olds. That isn't a policy.
"Either we go down this road with all these young players, all getting a chance to play, or we don't go down this road."
Bayern have already secured Corentin Tolisso, Kingsley Coman, Niklas Sule and Serge Gnabry this summer – all four players are 21 or 22 – along with Sebastian Rudy.
Monaco reject €35m Arsenal bid for Lemar
"I fully support what's been done so far - it's highly satisfactory and it all makes sense,” Hoeness said. “Sule, Rudy, Gnabry and Tolisso are players with huge potential for the future.
"As chairman of the supervisory board I'm very pleased with our transfer policy up until now because it was implemented with great care.
"I said that if we wanted to strengthen this team then we had to buy the very best players. And to get them is difficult enough. In no way was I saying we would do this.
"I only wanted to point out that we have a very good team and if you want to strengthen, you have to spend a huge amount of money and you still don't have any guarantee of winning the Champions League.
"If we wanted to buy our way to the Champions League title, we would have to throw a lot of money at it. I don't think anything at all of alibi signings, we've spoken about this internally."