The decision has been made!
Six days after the blameworthy WM-Aus in Qatar it is now clear: Hansi Flick (57) remains national coach.
This is the result of a crisis summit that lasted around two and a half hours with the DFB leadership around President Bernd Neuendorf (61) and DFB Vice President Hans-Joachim Watzke (63) on Wednesday.
Neuendorf said in a press release: “We are all convinced that the 2024 European Championship in our own country represents a great opportunity for football in Germany. Our goal is to make this tournament a sporting success. We have full confidence in Hansi Flick that he will master this challenge together with his team. With regard to Oliver Bierhoff’s successor, we have agreed that we will first discuss the future structure of this area of responsibility within the DFB in order to then make a personnel decision.”
Hansi Flick, whose first tournament as head coach ended in disgrace, added: “My coaching staff and I are optimistic about the European Championships in our own country. We as a team can do a lot more than we showed in Qatar. We missed a big opportunity there. We will draw our lessons from this. I have confidence in the joint path agreed today with Bernd Neuendorf and Aki Watzke. We all want the whole of Germany to rally behind the national team again at the 2024 home European Championship.”
The joint decision for the future was made in the Kempinski Hotel Gravenbruch, around nine kilometers away from the new DFB campus. Neuendorf, Flick and Watzke met there at noon. At 1:57 p.m. Watzke arrived first at the previously kept secret location, Neuendorf followed at 2:06 p.m., Flick drove up at 2:26 p.m.
Hansi Flick after the secret meeting
According to the DFB, the “friendly and constructive conversation” ended around 150 minutes later. Flick left the scene at 5:01 p.m. His car was previously driven into the garage by a hotel employee. Flick was thus able to save himself the walk past the journalists.
It’s not just about “The Team” THAT is what Bierhoff did wrong!
However, it took more than an hour for the decision to be announced. At 6:19 p.m., the DFB announced the news that all of Germany had been waiting for.
