After once again missing out on promotion to the Bundesliga, Hamburger SV made a far-reaching personnel decision and replaced sports director Jonas Boldt with Stefan Kuntz. The people of Hamburg made this official on Tuesday evening.
Boldt, whose contract was valid until 2025, was released. Kuntz, European champion in 1996 and long-time successful coach of the German U21 national team, will take over the job immediately and will finally lead the club back up after relegation in 2018. He will be introduced in the next few days.
Jonas Boldt failed once too often to achieve his season goal of promotion at HSV.dpa
“We have completed our very detailed analysis process and have come to the decision that after missing promotion for the sixth time in a row, we need and want a new sporting impulse,” said Supervisory Board Chairman Michael Papenfuß. Kuntz “comes from football, has management experience and will find structures and responsibilities that have been established here and should develop them further in a focused manner.”
Experiences on all levels
So far, Kuntz has primarily celebrated success as a coach. As Turkey’s national coach, he only missed the World Cup in Qatar in the play-offs against Portugal. He led the DFB U21 national team to the European Championship final three times in a row, and he won the title with the team in 2017 and 2021.
He previously gained management experience at TuS Koblenz and VfL Bochum. He was also club boss at his former club Kaiserslautern for eight years and was a member of the board of the German Football League (DFL) in 2015/2016.
Boldt (42), who has missed the chance to return to the Bundesliga five times with Hamburg since taking office in 2019, has recently come under heavy criticism after the next failed attempt. For days there has been speculation that the supervisory board could withdraw its trust in the manager.
