Bayern Munich have made it clear to Hiroki Ito that he no longer figures prominently in their plans and should actively look for a new club, according to a report from Sport Bild. The message marks a sharp turn for a defender the club paid about €24 million for only in summer 2024.
The timing matters because Bayern are already shaping next season with the World Cup looming, and Ito’s name has been pushed to the edge of the squad picture. He has managed just 31 competitive matches in two years, a return blunted by injuries that began with a metatarsal fracture in a pre-season friendly, then a second break after he came back in mid-February and reached only his eighth competitive outing. A torn muscle fibre in February added another stop to a spell that kept him sidelined until late autumn.
For Ito, the report is not just about minutes lost. It is about where Bayern now see him in the pecking order. Jonathan Tah and Dayot Upamecano were ahead of him in central defence for the biggest domestic and European games, while Josip Stanisic and Konrad Laimer were preferred at left-back when that role opened up. On top of that, Bayern are closing in on Nathaniel Brown from Eintracht Frankfurt and are tracking Yann Bisseck of Inter Milan, which narrows the space even further.
That leaves the awkward business side of the move. Any club interested in Ito would likely have to come close to the €20 million Bayern paid VfB Stuttgart when they activated his release clause, even though Bayern themselves spent around €24 million to bring him in last summer. The numbers do not sit neatly together, and that is the problem: Bayern may be ready to move on, but the market still has to meet a price that makes sense for a player whose stop-start spell has been defined more by recovery rooms than by steady selection. Spain’s LaLiga is described as a particularly attractive option, yet there is no sign that any club is prepared to pay the sort of fee Bayern would want.
The picture is therefore simple enough. Bayern want a sale, Ito is expected to leave this summer, and the question now is whether a buyer will value him on his ceiling rather than the injury-riddled spell he has just lived through. For Bayern, the decision fits a wider reshuffle. For Ito, it starts the search for a club willing to trust that his best football is still ahead of him.
