Once again, Schalke’s former coach Peter Neururer has 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 of retiring: he is a TV expert for Sport 1, takes care of the club-less professionals who train as part of the VdV camps every year, and is currently touring Germany with a stage program called “Schweigen ist feige” (Silence is cowardly).
He pays particular attention to his favourite club, FC Schalke 04. No wonder, he lives in Gelsenkirchen, is an S04 member and attends home games as often as possible. However, this affection does not prevent Neururer, who was the club’s trainer from 11 April 1989 to 13 November 1990, from criticizing the current club management.
For the second time in a row, Schalke is fighting against relegation, although the path to the upper third in the second division should lead there. If S04 loses against Jahn Regensburg on Sunday (1:30 p.m./Sky), they could be relegated to a direct relegation spot. Neururer presented some of the reasons in an interview with the ZDF sports studio.
He would “greatly appreciate” squad planner Ben Manga because he has “achieved great things at a certain level”. But Manga has “zero knowledge and no network” of the level at which Schalke is currently operating. Neururer’s accusation: “This man brings in 15 new players, the last of whom the coach didn’t even know by name.” Such conditions are terrible. The last coach: he means Karel Geraerts, with whom Manga never got along. There are no personalities in the Schalke team.
Ex-Schalke coach Neururer: “Only Elgert’s U19 team works well”
He would no longer recognize the Schalke DNA, said Neururer, referring to the training in the Knappenschmiede. “The U23 has recently trained with eight men and is in a relegation place in the regional league.” Neururer called out to the bosses: “They are capable not only of executing the professional team, but also of destroying the next generation. The only thing that is 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 in the upper reaches.”
Neururer only partially understands why Youri Mulder is temporarily acting as successor to Marc Wilmots, who has also been fired: ”Youri is an outstanding guy, but I wonder: why now all of a sudden? For me, this is a promotional stunt. It’s typical for Schalke to bring back old heroes shortly before a general meeting. His right-hand man should be Olaf Thon, then everything would be fine.” In a side note, Neururer said about Wilmots: ”I asked Marc at some point: Do you even know this team? He said: I don’t know a single one.”
As early as February, Neururer had criticized the club’s management, led by supervisory board chairman Axel Hefer. He said that the management “has never been involved in professional soccer” and “makes one mistake after another.” “This is causing panic and fear in the club,” Neururer said in the middle of last season’s relegation battle. It was clear to him in February “that it can’t go on like this.” With former supervisory board chairman Clemens Tönnies at the helm of the club, Schalke would “never have got into this situation,” said Neururer.
These words were sharply criticized by the influential fan club Ultras Gelsenkirchen (UGE) at the time, writing in its fan club newspaper Blauer Brief: “Is it really possible to walk around with such blinkers on , not to recognize that in some areas we are still in the process of eating the shit that the long-standing leaders like C.T. and his cronies have left behind?” the Ultras asked at the time. About Neururer, they added: “But does anyone really believe that self-proclaimed saviors like Fähnchen-im-Wind-Pedda would help us pull the cart out of the mud?”