Jürgen Klinsmann's time at Hertha BSC is finally over. After resigning as a trainer, he should no longer belong to the supervisory board, according to investor Lars Windhorst. In the coming weeks, the previous assistant coaches will look after the team.
Berlin (dpa) - After his resignation as coach of Hertha BSC, Jürgen Klinsmann will no longer return to the supervisory board of the Berlin Bundesliga club.
"Unfortunately, the way of leaving is so unacceptable that we cannot continue to work in a way that is in the interests of the association," said investor Lars Windhorst at a press conference: "Jürgen Klinsmann has lost a lot of his credibility. It is really sad, but we have to live with it. "
However, Windhorst left open "whether we can rely on him and his advice in a different form in a few months. I never close doors." The sponsor personally "regretted that Jürgen Klinsmann left us very abruptly". Despite the recent turmoil, Windhorst confirmed his commitment to the capital club. His investment was still "very, very long-term" and "not for three or five years," emphasized the entrepreneur.
However, the association is not currently planning to go public. "For us at Hertha BSC this is an issue that is not really relevant," said Windhorst. First of all, the topic had to be "discussed in the Hertha BSC committees anyway," said Windhorst, making it clear: "Our further engagement does not require an IPO." Borussia Dortmund has been the only soccer Bundesliga club listed on the stock exchange since 2000.
Klinsmann had surprisingly given up his coaching position at Hertha after only eleven weeks on Tuesday morning and thus shocked the club. The 55-year-old had initially announced that he wanted to return to the supervisory board. In a video chat on Wednesday evening, he then expressed himself more reluctantly and put the decision in the hands of the club. Windhorst used clear words to criticize Klinsmann's style when he said goodbye: "Perhaps you can do that as a teenager, but you shouldn't do it in business where you have serious agreements."
At the coaching post, Hertha initially trusts the previous co-coaches Alexander Nouri and Markus Feldhoff. "We will start the next few weeks with Nouri and Feldhoff and the coaching team. We all know that we have difficult tasks ahead of us and will have to score in the next few weeks. Both of them deserve the full support to prepare the team for the next few weeks "said Hertha manager Michael Preetz. Performance manager Arne Friedrich also remains in office. The job for the former Hertha captain was created at the end of November at the urging of Klinsmann.
"For summer" it would then be "of course a task to find a new line-up for the head coach position", announced Preetz, who confirmed disagreements with Klinsmann about the interpretation of the coaching task. "There are different opinions about how the role of the head coach is defined. We didn't agree on that," said the manager, also expressing harsh criticism of Klinsmann: "Things I heard yesterday that I'm sitting on the bench and committed surface. These are not things that we have discussed with each other. You cannot clarify this if you turn around and run away. "
According to his own statement, Klinsmann was contacted by Windhorst last October whether he could support the entrepreneur in football matters. At the beginning of November, the donor's Tennor Holding named the world champion of 1990 for a place on the supervisory board of GmbH & Co. KGaA after it increased its stake to 49.9 percent for a total of 224 million euros. Klinsmann left this post when he took over as head coach just three weeks later. The supervisory board of the KGaA has comparatively little authority and is, for example, not responsible for approving transfers or for deciding on the management of manager Michael Preetz.
On Wednesday evening, Klinsmann had described the circumstances of his sudden resignation as "questionable" via the Internet message and apologized to the fans. At the same time, however, he also criticized the role of Manager Preetz and justified his resignation with the desire for more skills, which the club had denied him. "We wiped ourselves out in many, many side war scenes." He "unbelievably came across" that the manager was sitting on the bench and making his comments.
Facebook entry on the Klinsmann page for resignation
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