Bauermann voices for league limit on foreigners

[rikhardur]

Bauermann strikes again:

German NT coach compares US players to supermarket employees

The discussions about the number of US players in the German Bundesliga continue and the current National Team coach Dirk Bauermann used a podium discussion to add even more oil in the fire. Bauermann is known for claiming at every occasion to increase the number of German players in the Bundesliga by setting up a minimum quota of 6 domestic players instead of the current 3. This discussion has been taken over by Financial Times Germany this weekend for an article where the former Bamberg and Leverkusen coach attacks the Bundesliga.

"The Bundesliga is an alienated product that does not help anybody: not the fans, not the sponsors and the National team even less. Our sport has a profile that is not German enough. What does it helps me as NT coach to watch a game like last weekend's Ludwigsburg against Oldenburg where the playing time of all the German players in both teams was zero and where both teams have no German coach."

The problem is that the Bundesliga is pretty independent from the German federation and both have different goals. While Bauermann as National Team coach and German federation employee wants the Bundesliga to use German players, the Bundesliga wants to improve its playing level and professionalism by opening the doors to any kind of players. Both points are understandable but Bauermann puts himself into a very strange situation as he is asking for more Germans on the court while during the same he is trying to get German citizenships for US players (Kaman, Przybilla, …). The league though needs to think about its current situation where minor US players are getting minutes and German talents prefer to move to the NCAA or are benched behind the 9th US player of the team. And here Bauermann goes for some very hard words against the club officials and says

"We are signing US players that would tow cases in a supermarket in the United States if they would not play in Germany"

On the one hand, this sounds pretty hard and Bauermann may not give the necessary respect but knowing that the league has no minimal salary and some players earn less than 1500USD per month, he may be right. Still, this does not change anything on the situation for a league that is still missing its identity but is however a popular success with increasing attendance numbers and growing sportive success of the top teams.

http://www.ballineurope.com/countries/germ...yees/#more-3065

But yeah, he contradicts himself while trying to naturalise an NBA player for the NT almost every summer