Dietmar Hamann is annoyed by the DFB’s pledge of loyalty to Hansi Flick. The ex-national player demands that the national coach not be given a say on a particular issue.

Dietmar Hamann considers Hansi Flick’s continued employment as national coach of the German national football team a mistake. “I lack faith why he should manage in the next 18 months what he has not come close to achieving in the past,” wrote the 2002 World Cup runner-up in a column for the Sky TV channel. DFB President Bernd Neuendorf had stressed shortly after the German team’s World Cup preliminary round exit that he had full confidence in Flick. Germany will host the European Championship in the summer of 2024.

Hamann mentioned Thomas Tuchel as a possible coaching candidate, “or we could have tried a coach who comes from abroad. We have moved so far away from what once distinguished us that I would have welcomed any new impetus. To continue in this constellation I think is a mistake.”

The 49-year-old also criticised Flick’s co-coach Mads Buttgereit: “We have a standard specialist on the coaching staff, in the whole tournament then 35 corners and in none did I have the feeling that there was anything even close to danger. Not to mention successful tackling.”

In the search for a successor to the resigned DFB director Oliver Bierhoff, Hamann would like to see a quick solution, in which Flick should have no say. The national coach “did not deserve that after the disastrous World Cup”, wrote the former FC Bayern and Liverpool FC professional. “In the USA, a nationwide petition has been started to sack the coach, despite the team reaching the last 16. We get knocked out in the preliminary round and Hansi Flick announces that he continues to enjoy the job.”

Hamann would welcome Fredi Bobic as Bierhoff’s successor. The managing director of sport at Hertha BSC would be a “good solution”. Meanwhile, Hamann could have imagined the former international and long-time club coach Felix Magath as part of the recently founded DFB expert council. “He recently coached himself, has a lot of experience and would have been a great added value. “