Hammer at Rot-Weiss Essen: Captain Felix Bastians is no longer part of the team with immediate effect. The veteran has been released.

Three days after Rot-Weiss Essen’s 5-0 debacle against SC Verl, the next blow has come for the third-division soccer club. Captain Felix Bastians is no longer part of the team.

As RWE announced, the 35-year-old has been released from training and playing duties. This was decided unanimously” by the board, the sporting management and the coaching team after a “detailed analysis”. The decision is effective immediately and was communicated to Bastians on Tuesday morning.

“In addition to the many positive developments of recent weeks and the fundamentally good start to the new season, we must note that there have been some tendencies and developments that we must counter. We will only be successful if sensitivities and egoisms are put to the back and everyone subordinates themselves 100 percent to the big picture,” Essen wrote in a statement.

Bastians had increasingly failed to live up to the expectation “as team captain not only to deliver his performance on the pitch, but also to lead the way as a leader on the pitch and in the dressing room,” the statement continued.

The release of the defender was without alternative to set a clear impulse. Further details do not call the Bergeborbecker. Physiotherapist Max von Gehlen will also no longer work for RWE with immediate effect. Whether the two personnel matters are related, the club left open.

Bastians has been playing at Hafenstrasse for a good two years. During this period, the former Bundesliga professional played 69 competitive games and celebrated promotion to the 3rd division. After his release, RWE hopes that “new hierarchies will form in our squad.”

For Bastians, it is not the first incident of this kind. He was once suspended at SC Freiburg and VfL Bochum. At RWE, he is already the third captain within the recent past to be demoted: This was also the case with Dennis Grote and Daniel Davari.