The cat is finally out of the bag: after his health-related break at Borussia Mönchengladbach, Max Eberl will return to the football business and join RB Leipzig at the end of the year. Both clubs have now officially confirmed this.

It's been almost a year since Max Eberl, completely exhausted, announced that he had to take a break from the football business. Now the 48-year-old feels ready for new tasks again - he will be working as Managing Director Sport at RB Leipzig in the future. His official start of service with the Red Bulls is December 15, 2022 - he has been given a "long-term contract".

According to the image, RBL agreed with Borussia Mönchengladbach, where Eberl still had a contract until 2026, on a fee of 2.5 million euros. In the future, bonuses can increase the amount by at least one million euros.

In the social networks, Eberl's imminent return had caused a lot of criticism and understanding in the past few weeks. This is what those involved say about the change of the 50-year-old:

"I'm very happy that we can now announce my move to RB Leipzig today. I'm grateful for the time I needed to recover and I feel ready and full of energy again to want to work in football. I'm coming to a club who has developed rapidly in recent years, is very ambitious and stands for a clear football philosophy. There is huge potential here - in the entire club and the entire region. Using and developing this potential is an incredibly attractive task for me . Likewise, the trusting discussions over the last few weeks with RB Leipzig about Oliver Mintzlaff and the associated appreciation that the club respects my break until after the World Cup have made it clear to me that this is exactly the task I want to take on."

"With Max Eberl, we were able to fill the position of Managing Director Sport with our absolute dream candidate. We have been dealing with Max for a long time, but have always respected his difficult situation and are now very happy to be able to start working together in December. After his press conference in On January 1st of this year I wrote to Max and wished him all the best.I kept trying to get in touch afterwards, but Max told me that he needed some rest and time to himself and wasn't interested in football, we were but could meet in the summer. That's why I never broke off contact and met with him in the summer. Here Max confirmed to me that he finds the perspective with us very interesting, but does not want to come back before July 1st, 2023. But that opened the door a bit for us and we are now very happy that together with Max we are ready to start our cooperation s for mid-December."

"It was certainly a relatively long time before we were able to fill this position of sports director, which had been vacant for almost a year and a half. But it was always important to us to get an absolute top man who can develop RB Leipzig in the long term and take it to the next level - we found exactly this strong man in Max Eberl and were able to inspire him for us. At this point I would also like to thank Borussia Mönchengladbach and first and foremost Stephan Schippers for the good and always fair discussions."

"By terminating his employment contract, we are complying with this wish. In good and fair discussions, we have reached an agreement with RB Leipzig that corresponds to our ideas."

This article was originally published on 90min.com/de as Eberl's move to RB Leipzig: That's what those involved say.