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Doubts about DFB director Oliver Bierhoff are increasing

Wo is Oliver Bierhoff actually there? Since the German national team said goodbye to a European Championship two weeks ago, i.e. what felt like an eternity, at which they hadn’t missed football Europe any further, the DFB director has gone into hiding. To be more precise: Bierhoff never appeared again after the end of the German football illusions. Because the most important person responsible for sport in the German Football Association (DFB), responsible for the national teams and the new academy, had already launched his own competition many months before the European Championship: to make yourself invisible – to get as far as possible to differentiate from Joachim Löw.

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But last but not least: to distract from his own and equally gross misjudgments. In the meantime, the following can be said without envy: The plan of the ego tactician has worked. At least on his own behalf, Bierhoff did a great job. But if you remove the magic hat from the DFB director, you can see with all clarity that the core area for which he is responsible at the DFB has come down to the dog. The four-time world champion has disappeared somewhere in the European midfield. And not just since this summer, but for over three years.

Bierhoff’s record is also bleak when it comes to the probably even more important question of how Germans identify with their national team. Even experts from the big German companies, who invest the most money in sponsoring in this country, openly criticized before the EM that Bierhoff’s marketing strategy under the motto “The Team” had only led to the isolation of the German national team from their fans. Especially on this issue, there could be a change of course in the German Football Association (DFB).

Change of course in marketing

“Regardless of current discussions about possible sponsorship contracts and appearances of the national team, it is certainly not wrong if you take the restart with a new national coach as an opportunity to think about the public positioning”, says DFB interim president Peter Peters of the FAZ also Peters It should not have escaped the fact that the appearance, which many fans still associate with the concept of “The Team”, contributed significantly to the national team’s loss of reputation.

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