Uli Hoeneß criticizes national coach Julian Nagelsmann. “If Germany manages to become a team even though the coach hasn’t managed to play with the same team twice in a row – then we have a chance,” said Bayern Munich’s honorary president in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Hoeneß had already made several sharp comments against Nagelsmann in the recent past. The 74-year-old drew a comparison with “his” FC Bayern. “The situation is the same as ours,” said Hoeneß: “Before the season, everyone said: the squad is too small, the squad is not good enough. But then the coach made all the players better, and above all, he made a team out of the players. But our national coach believes he will win the game. No, the team will win the game.”
Hoeneß recently said in a Dazn interview that he didn’t mean “any harm at all” to the national coach: “I just hope that he thinks about the fact that those who say something like that – Matthias Sammer recently said something similar – don’t wish him defeat, but success.” After a conversation with him, Nagelsmann was “slightly offended”.
Hoeneß said Nagelsmann lacked a bit of “this willingness to listen and accept”: “He will have to live with his decisions. If he is successful, I will be the first to congratulate him. If not, then it will be difficult for him.”
Hoeneß: “A football game must always be possible”
Hoeneß also criticized the world football association’s admission price policy for the upcoming World Cup in the summer. “I totally reject what is currently happening at Fifa with the prices for the World Cup in the USA. It no longer has anything to do with the football business, as I would like it to,” Hoeneß told the FAS.
One thing is particularly important to Hoeneß in this context: “The World Cup final must not be like the Super Bowl.” Hoeneß said he recently met someone who was watching the NFL American football final in a billionaire’s box: “The box cost $1.5 million for one day. For 20 people. So $75,000 per person. Some of them didn’t even watch the game. And of course the most important thing was the halftime show.”
Four tickets for the World Cup final were recently offered for almost $2.3 million each on a resale site run by the world association. The prices for tickets that are still available for the USA’s first game against Paraguay in Los Angeles on June 12th range between 1,120 (950 euros) and 2,735 US dollars (2,325 euros). The world association has been criticized for a long time because of ticket prices. Fifa President Gianni Infantino recently defended the pricing policy as being in line with the market.
Hoeneß emphasized that in addition to expensive VIP tickets, FC Bayern also had annual tickets for 175 euros. “I’m very proud of that. I don’t want fans who don’t have that much income to no longer be able to afford it,” said the former successful manager of the German record champions: “Football belongs to them too, or especially to them. It shouldn’t be the case that they can only afford to go to football if they save money on food or vacation. A football game must always be possible.”