class=”sc-29f61514-0 jbwksb”>
The sun beat relentlessly on the players in Seefeld, Austria. The mobile phone of Heiko Vogel (47) vibrated mercilessly on the wooden table next to the training field. Transfer time is phone time. The sports director of FC Basel is under constant pressure. He doesn’t want to complain. «I find the work exciting, cool. I’m more relaxed than I used to be when I was a coach.”
The fact that he has little experience in his new role does not worry the naturally confident man from the Palatinate. “I don’t have to learn how to use the phone. It’s about meaning and reason, not experience.” He was in the sporting leadership at Bayern Munich in the youth. And as a coach, he also learned a lot about the profession of sports director. Vogel is not bothered that he now deals more with player advisors instead of developing players on the field. “It’s part of the game.”
Vogel struggles with the transfer market
But he’s struggling with the transfer market in general. While the astronomical amounts are doing the rounds. “As a child, Diego Armando Maradona transferred to Napoli for 24 million marks. That was an incredible amount at the time. Unbelievable.” That is almost peanuts compared to now, says Vogel. “Today, a player who tends to pass his peak performance moves to Saudi Arabia for an annual salary of 200 million. This is fundamentally unhealthy. These are amounts that in my view can no longer be justified in a society.”
It’s also hard to understand what other clubs do with billionaire owners. “Just because I can, I spend unimaginable amounts of money on new players. Maybe I’m too small a light, but what does all this have to do with financial fair play?” asks Vogel rhetorically.
Broken down by the Super League, it is the Bernese Young Boys who benefit from financially powerful donors behind them. And have a good chance of qualifying for the Champions League this season. YB only needs to survive one round to reach the 30 million pot. In addition, the Swiss champion has been placed in the playoff round. “It will be difficult to keep up with YB financially, so we have to get creative. But a lot is currently also possible in Lugano,” says Vogel.
Zeqiri was too expensive
FCB, on the other hand, has been pruning for years and wages are being reduced. “We are often financially unable to go one step further in negotiations. And we don’t want that either,” said the sports director. The best example is the departure of Andi Zeqiri. It was “definitely a loss,” said Vogel. But you couldn’t keep the contract Zeqiri had at Brighton. “Andi is completely not greedy, but where he comes from, we can’t compete with him. And he has earned his position. A career as a footballer is limited in time. I can understand why players don’t want to give up a lot of money voluntarily.”
Things are different for last season’s top scorer Darian Males, the man who scored an incredible 27. They try to keep the central Swiss in Joggeli, so Vogel. “It’s our turn. Because it makes sense for us to find a solution.” Only: Males has completely different options, is currently even more in the spotlight at the European U21 Championship and is increasing in market value from week to week. VfB Stuttgart, among others, is interested in the left foot. Owner club Inter Milan, where Males still has a contract until 2025, dreams of an amount of millions. FCB could have taken over Males for almost three million a few weeks ago, but decided not to use the option.
In the case of Zeki Amdouni, on the other hand, the Basel team did a good job. And should be reaping the rewards soon. Among other things, Benfica Lisbon is very interested in the shooting star of the Swiss national team, and the Geneva resident is likely to bring in a double-digit million. “It is our destiny that we can guide young, talented players a bit and be a springboard for the next step in their career. Zeki is phenomenally good. He proved that both with us and in the national team,” said Vogel.
Bird: “Be creative!”
Should FCB lose Amdouni, Males and Zeqiri, a total of 75 scorer points will be lost. How does Vogel want to replace them? “We always have to be creative,” says the 47-year-old. Knowing full well that gatekeepers don’t just fall out of the blue. With Jean-Kévin Augustin, Bradley Fink and Andrin Hunziker, three strikers are currently at a training camp in Seefeld. The latter is one of the few players in the selection who comes from his own offspring. The red-blue DNA? Has been lost in recent years.
Instead of talent from the campus, FCB under David Degen increasingly called on foreign talent. Recent example: Fin van Breemen (20). De Basler made it out of the second highest division in the Netherlands. And that despite the fact that you have two of your own central defenders in Marvin Akahomen (15) and Erdin Ismaili (17), who have already sniffed professional air last season. However, according to Vogel, the two are not comparable to Van Breemen. Ismaili and Akahomen are still extremely young. With Van Breemen, however, they have attracted a player who has already gained experience as a professional and can help the team directly. “But,” says Vogel. “Something is growing in our posterity.”
Says it and looks at his cell phone, which starts to vibrate again. Transfer time is phone time.
Source : Blick
I’m Emma Jack, a news website author at 24 News Reporters. I have been in the industry for over five years and it has been an incredible journey so far. I specialize in sports reporting and am highly knowledgeable about the latest trends and developments in this field.
