DThe table tennis Bundesliga (TTBL) and the German champions Borussia Düsseldorf have sharply rejected allegations by national player Dimitrij Ovtcharov and his club TTC Neu-Ulm about a possible conflict of interest of the Düsseldorf manager Andreas Preuss on the TTBL supervisory board. “We are very disappointed in Dimitrij Ovtcharov, he got completely lost with his unfounded statements in which he attacked me personally and my club,” Preuss is quoted as saying in a statement from Borussia on Tuesday.
It goes on to say: “My club and I have always followed the rules. The players of the TTC Neu-Ulm, on the other hand, deliberately violated the provisions of the TTBL and broke them,” it said.
The Düsseldorf manager and also the TTBL managing director Nico Stehle pointed out that club representatives on the supervisory board of a league association “are absolutely common in organized sport” and cited the German Football League (DFL) as an example. “There cannot be the slightest hint of a doubt about the integrity of Andreas Preuss,” said Stehle. “At no time did Andreas Preuss put the interests of his club above the well-being of the league when the TTBL supervisory board made important decisions.”
The background to this dispute is two players from the Düsseldorf rivals from Neu-Ulm, who were also used for two clubs in Sweden and Japan in January after the end of the transfer period. Because of this violation of the license agreement, TTBL Sport GmbH fined Lin Yun-ju from Taiwan and Truls Moregardh from Sweden 10,000 euros each and suspended them for ten games each.
The fact that these bans only apply in the coming season is the main criticism of the TTC Neu-Ulm about the verdicts. The German cup winner therefore wants to go before a TTBL arbitration board in both cases. Ovtcharov and the Neu Ulm President Florian Ebner had at least repeatedly raised a conflict of interest from Preuss as manager of the biggest sporting rival and head of the supervisory board of the league association. Former world number one Ovcharov expressed the desire for an independent TBBL board in a later deleted post on social media.
