The contract of Sven Mislintat as sports director of VfB Stuttgart expires. With the help of an online petition, fans are calling for an extension.

Almost 12,000 fans of Bundesliga football club VfB Stuttgart are in favour of extending the contract of sporting director Sven Mislintat. The signatures collected in an online petition are to be handed over to chairman of the board Alexander Wehrle this Thursday. “We fear a relapse into old times and non-transparent structures,” said a statement by the signatories published on Tuesday. “The repeated postponement of negotiations is a thorn in our side and we have clear expectations of the club, which is currently not living up to its claims at all.”

Mislintat’s contract ends on June 30, 2023, and negotiations on his future are to begin “without pressure” this week, said Wehrle, who has repeatedly defended the 16th-placed club’s timetable of late.

In September, the CEO had apparently brought in his new advisors Sami Khedira and Philipp Lahm without prior consultation with Mislintat, as well as hiring ex-captain Christian Gentner as head of the professional players’ department for the new year. The online petition was then launched. Mislintat and Wehrle were at pains to emphasise in public that the disagreements had been resolved. However, rumours that the relationship was difficult have persisted ever since.