Bayern sports director Sammer to stay on until 2018

By Karolos Grohmann

BERLIN (Reuters) - Bayern Munich sports director Matthias Sammer has extended his contract by three years to 2018 after being rewarded for a successful stint so far, the German champions said on Wednesday.

Sammer, a former Germany international and club coach, joined Bayern in 2012 from the German FA where he was sports director.

"These two-and-a-half years that I have been in Munich have been intensive but equally successful," Sammer told reporters, sitting next to club president Karl Hopfner. "I feel very well here at the club and it is an honour to continue serving it."

His spell at Bayern has indeed been successful with the Bavarians winning the 2013 and 2014 Bundesliga titles as well as the 2014 German Cup and the 2013 Champions League.

"We have big aims for the club and I want to help out so we can achieve them," said the ex-Borussia Dortmund player and coach, who was also briefly in charge of VfB Stuttgart and played for East Germany before reunification in 1990.

Bayern have also been dominant his season and stand four points clear at the top of the Bundesliga, having qualified for the Champions League knockout stage with two games to spare, the fastest ever group win by a German team.

Hopfner also said jailed former club president Uli Hoeness, convicted of tax evasion, will work with the Bayern youth teams from next year.

"He will sign a contract and, as he had wanted it, working with the youth teams," said Hopfner, who succeeded Hoeness last year. "We are all looking forward to that."

Hoeness, who is also an ex-Bayern player and manager, was jailed in June for 3-1/2 years for failing to pay some 40 million euros (32 million pounds) in taxes through a Swiss bank account but looks set to be conditionally released in January.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Ken Ferris)