Manchester United made Bayern Munich an enormous offer for Thomas Muller

Bayern Munich’s chief financial officer Jan-Christian Dreesen has revealed the Bundesliga club once turned down a €100m (£85m) offer for Thomas Muller from Manchester United.

The 27-year-old Germany forward, a World Cup winner in 2014, was the subject of a big-money approach from the Red Devils, but Bayern rejected the bid as they did not want to “weaken” Muller.

In an interview with Sport Bild on Tuesday, Dreesen said of the enquiry from Jose Mourinho’s Premier League side: “There really was such a thing. A fax came from England.

“For us, however, selling Thomas Muller was never discussed. If a player fits here, we would be stupid to go for the short-term prospect of a record profit only to weaken him.”

United did have a healthy transfer budget last summer, as evidenced by the re-signing of Paul Pogba for €105m (£89.3m), and the additions of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrikh Mkhitarayan.

Muller is the product of the Bayern youth system. He has scored 156 in all competitions for the Bavarians since making his senior debut in 2008.