Wehrle issues apology to Mislintat for not involving him in Gentner hire
VfB Stuttgart have issued a press release in which both club sporting CEO Alexander Wehrle and sporting director Sven Mislintat seek to clear the air about the administrative moves in recent days.
The roll-out this week of three former VfB Stuttgart players with new jobs in club's front office rather unfortunately coincided with speculation over the future of current club sporting director Sven Mislintat. Although Philipp Lahm, Sami Khedira, and Christian Gentner are by no means meant to act as potential replacements for Stuttgart's current top personnel exec, sporting CEO Alexander Wehrle has issued an apology anyway.
Mislintat has issued a statement claiming that both he, head-coach Pellegrino Matarazzo, and fellow administrator Markus Rüdt were not privy to the discussions that brought the trio in. Mislintat publicly complained that it would have been greatly appreciated if the already established trio had some knowledge of the recruitment efforts to bring in the second. Wehrle was quick to respond.
"In hindsight, it would certainly have been better to involve Markus Rüdt and Sven Mislintat at an early stage," Wehrle said, "This has been discussed and cleared up with Sven."
Wehrle also commented on the ongoing contract extension talks.
"There's been a detailed exchange," Wehrle noted, "We have talked in detail about the timetable for our contract talks as well as the decisions to expand our sports structure. Extension talks resume at the end of November."
A further statement from Mislintat contained within the press release obviously sought to present a unified front. The Swabians certainly did not wish to convey the impression that a front-office shake up would leave the club in a Tuchel-Chelsea like situation.
"Markus, Rino [Matarazzo] and I are very happy about Gente's [Gentner's] return to VfB," Mislintat said of the new addition to his staff that he didn't choose, "We will integrate him into our team as if we had selected him ourselves. We are equally pleased about the involvement of Sami Khedira and Philipp Lahm as advisors to the board."
Der VfB-Vorstandsvorsitzende Alexander #Wehrle und VfB-Sportdirektor Sven #Mislintat haben sich in den vergangenen Tagen ausführlich über die weitere sportliche Ausrichtung des VfB ausgetauscht.#VfB | Zur Meldung 🔗⤵ https://t.co/Rp4MhbwHJ2
— VfB Stuttgart (@VfB) September 16, 2022