Rudi Völler has defended the new youth concept of the German Football Association (DFB).

He said there had been criticism “that results were abolished for six-, seven-, eight-year-olds. But then again, nobody knew that this has been the case in other countries for years,” the DFB director said in the “Spielmacher” podcast: “It works well in England, Belgium or Austria – and they have good players.”

Völler’s statements, however, are not a direct response to Hans-Joachim Watzke. The DFB vice-president had rejected the previous plans and announced a reform of the reform. Watzke described the planned changes at the DUP Entrepreneurs’ Day in Essen as “inconceivable” as well as “incomprehensible to me” and spoke of a “fundamentally wrong approach”. According to Watzke, the DFB leadership has already decided that the new DFB director Hannes Wolf should “come up with alternative courses of action in the next one or two years”.

Völler sounds different. “He has explained things well in the last few days, how this has to work. I also find that exciting,” said the 1990 World Cup winner and announced: “I have now also – regardless of the games with the senior team, when people point the finger too much at the DFB – made it a point to intervene. “