Bundesliga soccer club VfL Wolfsburg has separated from its sports director Marcel Schäfer with immediate effect. The club announced this. According to consistent media reports from “Kicker” and “Wolfsburger Nachrichten”, the 39-year-old has an offer from Bundesliga rivals RB Leipzig.

Schäfer informed the Wolfsburg supervisory board chairman Frank Witter "about his wish to change and the associated early termination of his existing contract as managing director of sports," according to the VfL statement. It was then “agreed, in view of all the circumstances, that Marcel Schäfer would suspend his duties with immediate effect.”

Schäfer was a VfL player from 2007 to 2017 and returned as sports director in 2018. On February 1, 2023, he was promoted to managing director as the successor to Jörg Schmadtke. In Leipzig, the managing director position has no longer been filled since the separation from Max Eberl last September. Both clubs meet this Saturday in the Bundesliga.

Supervisory board boss Witter regrets the separation from sports director Marcel Schäfer. "Of course there is disappointment. One or two tears were shed. Because Marcel wasn't just any managing director," said the former CFO of the Volkswagen Group to Wolfsburg journalists. Schäfer will “always remain a part of the VfL family. We can continue to look each other in the eye.”