• Bundesliga

Bayern's 'potential' decisive for Guardiola

Pep Guardiola's agent has revealed the former Barcelona boss decided in December that Bayern Munich would be his next project and also claimed that more lucrative deals were rejected in favour of a move to the Bavarians.

Bayern confirmed Guardiola's appointment on Wednesday but his representative Josep Maria Orobitg says a deal was actually agreed last month.

"It was signed before Christmas, around December 20. Bayern was chosen because of all the teams who made offers it was the best," Orobitg told EFE Radio. "We went over the offers and this is not the team which offered the most money. It was chosen for the organisation there, for the potential and for its players.

"There were contacts with clubs which were close, others which were parked... until the decision was taken. There were contacts with all those as was publicised - Roma, Milan... Furthermore there were meetings. It was coming out on all sides that there had been offers, true meetings, false meetings, journeys which did not exist.

"At Christmas the future had to be chosen. This is all signed for a while. I did not know that it would be announced this afternoon, in fact I was told at 12pm and they told me what was coming out in the announcement. Social media is amazing, they went as far as to suggest that Raul Gonzalez would be the assistant.

"That there have been leaks was a lie, it is that they wanted to take the decision today. Yesterday the club were denying it, but when so many people started to know it was impossible to hold on any longer. They had to inform the sponsors and organise things. These are very serious guys."

Guardiola will take over from current Bayern boss Jupp Heynckes when the veteran German manager's contract expires this summer.

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