Schalke can manage to stay in the league. Schalke can be relegated. Sports director Peter Knäbel must plan for both scenarios. Job guarantee for Reis.

Schalke are in 17th place. Relegation? Possible. Staying in the league? Possible. “The important thing is: we would never again fall as low as we did when we were relegated in 2021, during Corona’s time. But our main focus is of course on staying in the Bundesliga,” says Peter Knäbel in an interview with the Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

The sports director of the club from the Ruhr region gives coach Thomas Reis a job guarantee, even if S04 have to compete one league lower next season. “Thomas very quickly got a bond with the club and the people here. You can tell that he has become a man of the Ruhr after many years in this region. This includes his direct and open way of getting messages across,” Knäbel reports. “This way is not only well received here in the region, this way is also well received by footballers. He quickly imparted a footballing DNA to the team, and he quickly succeeded in welding the team and coaching staff together into one unit.”

Currently, he said, the officials are in the process of planning the upcoming season for the First and Second Divisions. “First of all, we have a good foundation of players in both scenarios. Building on that, we could play for promotion in the Second League and would have a good chance of staying in the First League again,” says Knäbel. At the same time, Schalke is trying to “get commitments from interesting players for both scenarios”. And the budget? “Compared to the Bundesliga, we would have about half the budget available – just like it was in the last second division season.”

Peter Knäbel took over overall sporting responsibility at Schalke in February 2021. Relegation could not be prevented afterwards, but the club was successfully promoted again. At that time, the sporting director also signed Rouven Schröder as sporting director, who later resigned from his job for personal reasons and will now work at RB Leipzig.

“I am not surprised. By timely, I rather meant a period before the start of the second half of the season. Rouven is an excellent expert. Given his relationship with Max Eberl, it was clear to me that this was possible,” explains Peter Knäbel. For now, Schalke is concerned with staying in the league. “In the long term, of course, we want to bring the club back to the regions where it belongs and where it has already been due to its size. “