Bayern Munich legend Gerd Muller dealing with Alzheimer's

Bayern Munich confirmed club icon and German legend Gerd Muller, one of the country's all-time top scorers, is suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

The club released a statement on Tuesday confirming that Muller, 69, has been dealing with and receiving treatment for the illness.

"For a long time Gerd Muller has unfortunately been very ill, he suffers from Alzheimer's disease," the statement reads, as quoted by ESPN.

Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge called his former teammate "one of the all-time greats of world football," adding:

Without his goals, Bayern Munich and German football would not be what it is today. There will probably never be another goalscorers like Gerd, yet despite all his successes, he was always very humble and reserved, which particularly impressed me.

He was a fantastic teammate and is a friend. Gerd will always enjoy a place in the Bayern family.

After he ended his playing career, he brought his experience as a coach of youngsters to the club, helping define the likes of world champions Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Thomas Muller, and we are also grateful to him for this.

We would therefore like to ask for respect for him and his family. Gerd, for whom the values of friendship and fair play were very important, deserves for us to be respectful of his illness and respect his and his family's private sphere.

Few players in the storied histories of both Bayern Munich and the German national team are as universally admired and beloved as Muller.

Nicknamed "the bomber of the nation" by the German press, he is a legend in German football, scoring 398 club goals with Bayern along with his 68 goals in 62 games for West Germany.

He was, for a long time, Germany's all-time top scorer, until Miroslav Klose surpassed his goal tally in the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Muller turns 70 on Nov. 3.