Schalke’s former coach Peter Neururer has once again criticized the club’s management. He is particularly critical of Ben Manga’s squad planning.
Peter Neururer has long since reached retirement age and can gradually prepare for his 70th birthday in April 2025, but he is not thinking about retirement: He is a TV expert for Sport 1, looks after clubless professionals who train at the VdV camps every year, and is currently touring Germany with a stage show called “Schweigen ist feige” (Silence is cowardly).
He keeps a particularly close eye on his beloved club, FC Schalke 04. No wonder, since he lives in Gelsenkirchen, is a member of S04 and attends home games as often as possible. However, his affection does not prevent Neururer, who was the club’s coach from April 11, 1989, to November 13, 1990, from strongly criticizing the current club management.
Schalke is fighting relegation for the second time in a row, even though the goal was to finish in the top third of the second division. If S04 loses against Jahn Regensburg on Sunday (1:30 p.m./Sky), it faces the threat of direct relegation. The reasons for this? Neururer presented some of them in an interview with ZDF-Sportstudio.
He said he “greatly appreciates” squad planner Ben Manga because he has done “great things on a certain level.” But Manga has “zero knowledge and no network” at the level Schalke is currently operating at. Neururer’s accusation: “This man brings in 15 new players, seven of whom the last coach didn’t even know by name.” Such conditions are appalling, he said. The last coach he was referring to was Karel Geraerts, with whom Manga never got along. There are no personalities in the Schalke team, he said.
Former Schalke coach Neururer: “Only Elgert’s U19 team is doing well.”
Neururer says he no longer recognizes the Schalke DNA, referring to the training at the Knappenschmiede academy. “The U23 team recently trained with eight players and is in a relegation spot in the regional league.” Neururer called out to the bosses: “You are capable of not only destroying the professional team, but also ruining the youth program. The only thing that’s working excellently at the moment is Norbert Elgert’s U19 team. But at the moment, no one can come out of there who can help Schalke 04 at the top.“
Neururer only partially understands why Youri Mulder is temporarily replacing Marc Wilmots, who was also fired: ”Youri is an outstanding guy, but I ask myself: Why now, all of a sudden? For me, it’s a publicity stunt. It’s typical of Schalke to bring back old heroes shortly before a members’ meeting. Olaf Thon should be his right-hand man, then everything would fit.“ In a side note, Neururer said of Wilmots: ”I asked Marc at some point: Do you even know this team? He said: I don’t know a single one.”
Neururer had already criticized the club’s management under supervisory board chairman Axel Hefer in February. He said they had “never been involved in professional soccer” and were making “one mistake after another.” “That triggers panic in the club,” Neururer said in the midst of last season’s relegation battle. For him, it was clear in February “that things couldn’t go on like this.” With former supervisory board chairman Clemens Tönnies at the helm, Schalke would “never have got into this situation,” according to Neururer.
The influential fan club Ultras Gelsenkirchen (UGE) clearly criticized these words at the time, writing in its fan club newspaper “Blauer Brief”: “Is it really possible to walk through the world with such blinders on that you can’t see that in some areas we are still cleaning up the mess left behind by long-standing figures such as C.T. and his ilk?” the Ultras asked at the time. About Neururer, they added: “But does anyone really believe that self-proclaimed saviors like Pedda, who changes his colors like a flag in the wind, would help us get the cart out of the mud?”