Matthäus and Nagelsmann's management agency dispute Kahn's claims of "courtesy"
There is still more bickering between the German footballing legends Oliver Kahn and Lothar Matthäus to report upon after Julian Nagelsmann's talent management agency has issued a statement about the nature of the former Bayern coach's dismissal.
| Lothar Matthäus. | Photo: Steffen Prößdorf, CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Nagelsmann's talent management agency, "Sports 360", issued a public statement to Sky denying this. This statement - reading that "there was no attempt by Bayern to contact Nagelsmann" - was read on Sky Air during halftime in the Bayern-Dortmund match. Matthäus, speaking to T-online at the half, then added a dig in at Kahn following their earlier tiff.
"I know Oliver Kahn is lying," Matthäus said,"Oliver Kahn just wants to distract from his problems, and then he attacks me. But I was prepared for that. I only say what I hear, see and feel. The chronological time frame, as Kahn describes it, doesn't fit together."
For whatever it's worth, the question of who attempted to contact whom first is of some tangential interest to those curious about whether Bayern made the decision to sack Nagelsmann only after they received word that Thomas Tuchel could commit to the club. Matthäus' stance claims basically claims that, after committing to Nagelsmann following the Leverkusen loss, Bayern management saw a chance and took it.
Kahn and the FCB front office do find themselves on the defensive a bit after Nagelsmann learned of his sacking through the media leaks. In his pre-match interview, Kahn called the manner in which things unfolded "a catastrophe" whilst still insisting that he "didn't want to inform Nagelsmann over the phone."
Kahn claims it was a matter of personal courtesy and insisted that firing a coach over the phone was "not my style". Matthäus, with his comments about "the time frame", aims to claim that the workings were more sinister.