Seven years ago, when the long-time football manager Dirk Dufner worked as a player consultant, he was cited in the Bild newspaper as follows: “The Bundesliga job is destructive. It can no longer be fun if you as a manager are now fired almost as quickly as as a coach.” On Thursday, the lawyer Dufner, 57, was now introduced to Bundesliga club VfL Bochum as a new manager. Title: Managing Director Sport. Contract duration: until summer 2027.
VfL urgently needed a squad planner since he had fired coach Peter Zeidler and sports director Marc Lettau five months ago. When Dufner was asked what gives him hope that VfL is planning in the long term, he said when he imagined: “Continuity is very important, and I did not have the impression in the conversations that you think about it differently at VfL Bochum.” His first conversation with managing director Ilja Kaenzig took place in Reinster Idylle: “With Baden bacon and Baden wine in the Baden sun”.
The Black Forest Dufner will now take care of the squad planning in Bochum. This is a challenge in this respect when you never know at this club in which league he will play in the future. Also at the moment. Bochum is the penultimate and considerably at risk of relegation. Trainer Dieter Hecking has only extended his contract for that case that he will remain in the class. Dufner says about such imponderables right at the beginning of the service: “I already know such situations: We don’t have too much time and have to plan two tracks.” On the class, according to Dufner, he would also appreciate if the trainer does not leave the club: “I would very much like to continue working with Dieter Hecking.”
Most recently, Dufner worked as a player consultant in an agency and as a squad planner at Hertha BSC
Dufner was once an assistant to the sports director Karlheinz Förster at VfB Stuttgart, then at TSV 1860 Munich sports director under the President Karl-Heinz Wildmoser and alongside the coach Werner Lorant, then he was temporarily a sports attendance in Munich. Dufner later worked as a sports director at SC Freiburg before he was followed by Hannover 96 as sports director on that Jörg Schmadtke, who was now said to have been traded as a candidate in Bochum. Most recently, Dufner had worked as a player advisor in an agency and as a squad planner at Hertha BSC. He is considered to be well networked.
Former sports bosses at VfL were Jens Todt, Stefan Kuntz, Sebastian Schindzielorz, Patrick Fabian and finally Lettau. Since October, the post has been vacant, from which the question arises as to whether Bochum was a competitive disadvantage, after all, nobody could plan in perspective during this time. However, the managing director Kaenzig replies: “I don’t think we have lost time, we have committed Dieter Hecking what a milestone is in the history of the club, and we have done a lot in the background that has not yet been communicated, for example, players.” Kaenzig raves about Dufner: “We have known each other for over a quarter of a century, he is a veteran of the Bundesliga.”