International Football
Germany part ways with coach after bad run-German FA
Germany parted ways with coach Hansi Flick on Sunday, a day after their 4-1 home loss to Japan in a friendly match with the four-time world champions struggling for form ahead of the Euro 2024 tournament on home soil, the German Football Association (DFB) said.
The decision comes as no real surprise with Germany having crashed out of last year’s World Cup early and their mediocre performances in recent months did nothing to convince the federation officials that the team could be successful next year on home soil.
Flick, assistant coach to his predecessor Joachim Loew when Germany won the World Cup in 2014, took over in 2021 but his team have managed four wins in their last 17 internationals, and they were also eliminated in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup.
They lost four of their five most recent matches, including the last three.
“The bodies (of the DFB) shared the same view that the national team now needs a new impulse,” DFB President Bernd Neuendorf said in a statement. “With next year’s Euro in sight we need enthusiastic mood and confidence.”
Germany do not need to qualify for the Euros but have shown no sign of improvement following last year’s shock World Cup exit, and with German fans quickly running out of patience with their poor form, the DFB thought it was time to act.
Germany are three-time European champions but have now been eliminated early in three consecutive tournaments, including two World Cups and the Euro held in 2021.
Under Flick the team lacked energy and power, while also struggling throughout with a leaking defence as well as poor conversion rate up front.
The DFB’s sports director Rudi Voller will be in charge of their friendly against 2022 World Cup finalists France on Tuesday with a successor for Flick to be named soon.
“Now, us in charge, have to act in order to be able to play next year at the Euro the demanding and ambitious role of hosts that we are hoping to play. That is what German fans rightly expect from us,” said Voller, who was national team coach from 2000-2004.
“The most urgent thing is then to bring in a national team coach who at short notice can redirect and prepare our team for the big Euro tournament next year.
“We expect from them, as does the whole country, positive impulses. A coach who can lift our level to where we know and expect it to be.”
-Reuters
Representatives from four national players’ unions on Thursday launched a new global organisation in Madrid, which they say will strengthen footballers’ rights and improve dialogue with governing bodies.
Opening a new front in the battle over who speaks for players, the International Footballers’ Association (AIF) was unveiled, with David Aganzo, president of Spain’s Association of Footballers (AFE) and a former head of the global union FIFPRO, appointed to lead the organisation.
Players’ unions from Brazil, Mexico and Switzerland were also represented.
The initiative drew a swift rebuke from FIFPRO, which said in a statement that Aganzo was acting out of self-interest and aligning himself with organisations linked to football governing bodies, as well as groups expelled from FIFPRO over alleged mismanagement.
Aganzo rejected the criticism, saying he “will not seek confrontation with FIFPRO”.
The launch comes amid strained relations between players’ unions and football authorities, particularly over the expanding international match calendar.
Relations between FIFA and FIFPRO deteriorated in 2024 after the union lodged a complaint with the European Commission, arguing that the global governing body was abusing its dominant position by adding competitions without sufficient consultation.
Aganzo denied suggestions that the new initiative was backed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, but said “direct dialogue with FIFA” was essential.
AFE’s Extraordinary General Assembly approved the initiative in February with 99.8% of votes cast in favour of spearheading the creation of the AIF.
The same assembly also backed AFE’s withdrawal from FIFPRO, citing what it described as a “complete lack of transparency, as well as its total lack of dialogue with international bodies.”
“We represent over 30,000 footballers, and we come here with a new model aimed at safeguarding players’ rights and facilitating direct communication with all international bodies,” Aganzo told reporters.
“We are in contact with 15 to 20 unions already who were very aware of this moment and waiting for this announcement to make their move and join our initiative.”
He declined to identify any unions beyond those present.
Asked about a report that a senior envoy to U.S. President Donald Trump had urged FIFA to replace Iran with Italy at the upcoming World Cup, Aganzo urged caution.
“These are more political issues; on April 30th, I’ll be speaking to Gianni (Infantino) at the FIFA Congress, and we will discuss those things,” Aganzo said.
“People who want to go to the World Cup have to earn their place on sporting merit.”
-Reuters
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A new trial over the death of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona will begin on Tuesday, with seven members of his medical team charged with negligent homicide nearly a year after a previous case collapsed in a mistrial.
An enduring presence in Argentina – from towering murals to tattoos, opens new tab – Maradona died on November 25, 2020, at 60, after a heart attack while he was recuperating from brain surgery to remove a blood clot.
A court in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires, will hear testimony from just under 100 witnesses as it tries Maradona’s medical team over alleged negligence in the death of the 1986 World Cup champion.
His medical team has denied wrongdoing. The defendants are psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychologist Carlos Angel Diaz, physician Nancy Edith Forlini, nurse Ricardo Almiron, head nurse Mariano Ariel Perroni, and physician Pedro Pablo Di Spagna. An eighth defendant, nurse Dahiana Madrid, will be tried in a separate jury trial, with no date yet set.
Two months into the first trial, which started last March, a mistrial was declared when one of three judges, Julieta Makintach, resigned after video surfaced showing her being interviewed by a camera crew in the corridors of the courthouse and in her office as part of a documentary, in breach of judicial rules.
The retrial will require both prosecutors and defense lawyers to reassess their strategies after the first trial aired photographs, videos, audio recordings and forensic evidence. Many witnesses, including Maradona’s children and his former wife, Claudia Villafane, have already testified.
Prosecutors argued in the initial trial that medical professionals broke treatment protocols and that the home where Maradona was recovering from surgery amounted to a “theatre of horror,” where necessary care was not provided.
The defense countered that his death was inevitable given his longstanding health problems. Maradona struggled for decades with cocaine and alcohol addiction.
The negligence charges emerged in 2021 after prosecutors appointed a medical board to investigate Maradona’s death. The panel concluded his medical team acted in an “inappropriate, deficient and reckless” manner.
-Reuters
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Aliou Cisse has been named coach of the Angola national team, the country’s football federation (FAF) announced on Thursday, 24 hours after the Senegalese left his post in Libya.
The 50-year-old coach, who led Senegal to their maiden Africa Cup of Nations title in 2022, ended his short stint with the Libyan national team on Wednesday, after taking charge in March 2025.
“Welcome, Aliou Cisse, head coach of the Angola national team,” the FAF said on Facebook. Angola, which failed to reach this year’s World Cup, will start their 2027 AFCON qualifying campaign in September.
-Reuters
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