Official | Oliver Bierhoff leaves role as Germany sporting director | OneFootball

The DFB and Oliver Bierhoff have parted ways immediately after terminating the Sporting Director’s contract. This comes after Germany exited the World Cup at the group stages for the second World Cup in a row.

Bierhoff originally had a contract until 2024 with the DFB but the two parties agreed on a mutual termination. The former striker had spent 18 years in some form at the DFB taking on roles around the national team and academy before also adding the project manager of the planned DFB academy.

In a statement after his departure Bierhoff said: “After 18 years in responsible positions at the German Football Association (DFB), I have resigned from my position as Managing Director National Teams & Academy with immediate effect. I agreed on this today with President Bernd Neuendorf. I am paving the way for new decisions. It was an intensive, exciting and instructive time in which we were able to celebrate great successes together, had to deal with setbacks and were able to implement extraordinary projects.”

The DFB will now look for a successor as they look to address the problem areas in the development of players as well as the areas that saw them eliminated early in the World Cup again. Fredi Bobic of Hertha Berlin and a host of other names are being touted as a successor for Bierhoff.

The scenario is similar to early 2000 when Germany were experiencing their worst performances internationally and required an upheaval of the system which ended with them winning the World Cup in 2014 as well as reaching the Euro 2008 final and semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup.