If the gap in valuations in Bavaria and north London can be bridged, Harry Kane will become Bayern Munich's club record transfer, comfortably eclipsing the €80million (£69m, $88m) fee the club paid for French defender Lucas Hernandez in 2019.
Spending north of €100m for a 30-year-old striker breaks new ground for the German record champions. They have prided themselves on acting frugally and being immune to the “madness” of the international transfer market, as honorary chairman Uli Hoeness loved to put it, yet the dearth of available centre-forwards this summer has forced them to push the boat out a bit more than they had initially wanted. As it stood on Monday, the gap between the two clubs was around £25million ($32m; €29.2m).
But in strict financial terms, it's actually a rather straightforward manoeuvre for one of the world's wealthiest sides. Despite receiving less than €100m in TV money from the Bundesliga, a pittance compared to clubs of similar size in the Premier League, Bayern pulled in €665m of income last season, mostly through commercial deals (€224m) and match-day and Champions League revenue (€159m).
For non-Germans, it's sometimes hard to understand the extent of Bayern's importance and popularity: they're a kind of Manchester United and Liverpool rolled into one, dominating the continent's biggest country in both a sporting and commercial sense. They have 300,000 fee-paying members and a similar amount of supporters in official fan clubs.
The life's work of Hoeness, who became Bayern's managing director aged 27 in 1979, has been to turn the club into a money-making machine that has posted profits for 30 consecutive years.
Strategic partnerships with Allianz, Audi and Adidas, who each own 8.33 per cent of the members-controlled club and are also the three biggest sponsors, have helped to secure Bayern's hegemony at home and their competitiveness abroad. The deals with the trio of corporate giants are in line with market rates: Adidas pays Bayern €90m a year as opposed to €104m annually to Manchester United, for example.
Hoeness has worked to make Bayern a money-making machine (Photo: Johannes Simon/Getty Images)
Accounting firm Deloitte, which ranks Europe's top clubs by income each year, puts Bayern in sixth place, with €653.6m, behind Manchester City (€731m), Real Madrid (€713.8m) Liverpool (€701.7m), Manchester United (€688.6m) and Paris Saint-Germain (€654.2m). Unlike quite a few of their competitors, however, they have no net debt.
Bayern's total wage bill, which includes about 1,000 non-playing staff, rose to €324m last season. But interestingly, amortisation — the writing off of transfer costs over the course of player's contract — was only €87m, a bit more than half the figure for Manchester United. This has been a crucial part of their strategy: paying relatively little in transfer fees has enabled them to offer competitive wages to their star players in return.
Kane will become their top earner but Bayern won't have to change their existing pay structure for him. Like his predecessor Robert Lewandowski (now at Barcelona) and the since-departed Sadio Mane (sold to Al-Nassr), he will receive around €25m all-in per season in Munich, the equivalent of £412,000 per week. Part of that sum will be made up of a one-off signing fee, which will reduce the England captain's book cost after his first year in Bavaria. Meanwhile, Hernandez's €45m sale to PSG has given Bayern further wriggle room as far as squad costs are concerned. The 27-year-old was also among the top earners.
In terms of cash flow, Bayern are also in a pretty comfortable position. Moving on Hernandez, Marcel Sabitzer and Mane for a combined €95m will cover most of the transfer outlay for Kane. Bayern have also bought Kim Min-jae for €50m from Napoli, however, and Manchester City's Kyle Walker will cost a bit of money, too, which somewhat restricts their ability to further strengthen in midfield.
Thomas Tuchel recently talked about looking for a defensive specialist but Bayern would probably have to sell either defender Benjamin Pavard, who is out of contract next season, or the currently out-of-favour Leon Goretzka before the supervisory board were to release additional funds.
Those will be rather niche considerations in comparison with the capture of England's top goalscorer at the height of the Premier League golden years, though.
If Bayern can see this through, Oktoberfest celebrations will kick off early in the Bavarian capital.