Nick Woltemade downplays Karl-Heinz Rummenigge's 'idiot' comments after Newcastle United move
A lot was made of Nick Woltemade's sudden switch to Newcastle United in the summer, with the £69 million move from VfB Stuttgart seemingly coming out of nowhere and happening very quickly.
All summer, the rumour had been that Bayern Munich were working on a deal to take the 23-year-old, but while Stuttgart held firm on their price, Bayern wouldn't be bullied into paying what they effectively couldn't afford.
Newcastle, desperate after having seen so many striker targets move elsewhere, jumped in and offered Stuttgart what they were asking and scooped up Woltemade from under Bayern's nose.
Needless to say, that didn't go down well in Bavaria, with high-ranking officials at the club making public statements about Newcastle's acquisition, the most famous of which was Karl-Heinz Rummenigge branding Newcastle as 'idiots' for paying Stuttgart's asking price.
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge effectively branded Newcastle 'idiots' for paying Stuttgart's asking price for Nick Woltemade
For context, here is Rummenigge's full quote:
“When this story with Nick Woltemade and then the demands of Stuttgart came up, I, as well as Uli Hoeness, Herbert Hainer, Jan Dreesen, and Max Eberl, said: guys, we’re reaching figures that I no longer find acceptable.
“We shouldn’t meet every demand to make someone happy, especially the financiers at Stuttgart.
“I can only congratulate the people in Stuttgart for finding…let me use quotation marks here, ‘an idiot’ who paid that much money, because we certainly wouldn’t have done that in Munich."
Nick Woltemade has finally addressed Karl-Heinz Rummenigge's comments
In his defence, he was trying to be quite careful with how he worded it, but obviously it didn't go down too well over here, and the quotes have since become infamous, albeit often taken out of context.
That is the point that Nick Woltemade has made now that he has finally addressed the comments in an interview with BILD (via Bulinews).
"My teammates commented on it, I didn’t. I think that was the right thing to do.
"A lot was made of my name, Bayern, and transfer fee during the summer; that was the story of the summer.
“To answer your question: the headlines everywhere said 'idiots' – But I read Mr. Rummenigge’s entire statement – it was certainly somewhat unfortunate, but not quite so dramatic.
“When I arrived at the national team, everyone congratulated me. Bayern players also congratulated me. When they see a player taking a step forward, you get congratulations.
“That was the case for me too. There were no negative comments [from Bayern players], especially since my circumstances were special.”
