Schalke coach Felix Magath has advised Manuel Neuer to ignore the rumours linking him with a move to Bayern Munich and sign a new contract with the Gelsenkirchen-based club to demonstrate that money isn't everything in football.

The German international's contract runs until 2012, but should he refuse to commit to a new deal before next summer, the Royal Blues would have little choice but to sell him or risk losing him on a free transfer 12 months later.

Magath knows he cannot offer the 24-year-old the same financial package that he could expect from Bayern, but he has reminded Neuer of what an honour it should be to represent his hometown club.

I think that he knows that a decision for Schalke would be something special in this football business. Only very few people have such a status and such a position in their own club.
Felix Magath on Manuel Neuer

"I think that he knows that a decision for Schalke would be something special in this football business," Magath said. "Only very few people have such a status and such a position in their own club.

"Manuel can develop even better and more sustainably with us because he can learn to take on more responsibility, and with that I don't mean responsibility for his and the team's performances, but responsibility for the entire club. He cannot do that in Munich. In Munich, he would just be an employee."

However, Magath has revealed that nobody from Bayern has made an official approach since he closed the door on a transfer a year ago.

"[Bayern's director of sport] Christian Nerlinger contacted me last year and I told him that Manuel would not be sold," said Magath in the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "As far as I was concerned, the issue had been dealt with. Since then, nobody from Bayern has been in touch with me."