Honorary captain Philipp Lahm has offered the German Football Association his help in dealing with the World Cup debacle.
"My main job is to be tournament director. It is clear that I have expertise in football through my life and I am with the DFB. That's why I'm happy to make my expertise in football available," said the chief organizer of the home EM 2024 at a media event in Leipzig when asked whether he would be involved in a kind of "think tank" to reorganize the tasks and structures surrounding the national team.
On Thursday, the head of the DFB supervisory board and DFB vice-president Hans-Joachim Watzke indicated that there could be a kind of new edition of the national team task force, which was set up at the beginning of the millennium to deal with the crisis at the time, if the DFB so desired. "If at some point the DFB has the feeling that we have to ask a few experienced people for advice and want to institutionalize that out of itself, that is certainly a way of thinking, but Bernd Neuendorf has to decide that with his people," said Watzke.
No push by the professional clubs
There will be no push by the professional clubs. "I rule out the fact that we, as the DFL, set up something ourselves and then basically play know-it-alls without the DFB asking us to do so," emphasized the football multi-functionary.
Watzke expects that DFB President Neuendorf will publicly comment on the developments after the early end of the World Cup in Qatar, the separation from managing director Oliver Bierhoff and the continuation of the work of national coach Hansi Flick before Christmas. "Bernd Neuendorf will certainly stand up," said Watzke.
Neuendorf recently made a statement shortly before leaving Qatar last week. The other personnel decisions were communicated by press release. "I would have done the same thing. In the first two or three days of disappointment, you can destroy a lot more with every sentence you say than you can ever build up," said Watzke.
On Friday, the DFB Presidium will meet in Frankfurt under the direction of Neuendorf. A personnel decision on Bierhoff's successor is not expected. The DFB had made it clear that structural changes and work profiles had to be discussed first. Schedules for the national team for 2023 may be discussed, in which national coach Flick will only play friendly games. The framework appointment calendar for the 2023/24 season and thus also the lead-up for the weeks immediately before the European Championships at home in the summer after next will be adopted.
