Sandrock: To win trophies, we need the best team

Helmut Sandrock has been German FA (DFB) general secretary, and by default second-in-command of the world’s biggest sporting association, for 17 months. Speaking exclusively to news agency SID, the 56-year-old outlined what the association is looking for in its next sporting director, offered his views on FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s U-turn regarding a winter World Cup in Qatar, and why the DFB intends to send its best players to all future U-21 European Championships.

Question: Helmut Sandrock, the DFB has been without a sporting director for more than seven weeks. Is there a deadline for appointing Robin Dutt’s successor?

Helmut Sandrock: I don't want to talk about deadlines, but there have been developments in this area. We've agreed on the required profile. We've liaised with the league to see who’s on the market. But as we've said from the start, we have time. It's not like we're unable to function.

Question: Have you held talks with any candidates?

Sandrock: No, nothing concrete.

Question: What is the required profile?

Sandrock: We need someone with a footballing background, preferably from the world of coaching, with some crossover into management. Obviously, the individual must have a vision of how football in Germany should develop. And it should also be someone capable of taking an international perspective.

Question: Could it even be someone from outside Germany?

Sandrock: I wouldn't describe it as an absolute must for the candidate to come from Germany, but we’ve been looking at Germany as our priority.

Question: Would you prefer a respected former international, or would you rather have someone who's been on the ground at association level?

Sandrock: Both would fit the profile, but provided it's the right combination, it doesn't necessarily have to be someone with 100 caps. If a respected former international fits the profile, that would be fine too.

Question: The profile is clear enough, but is that also true of the responsibilities? Specifically, will the new person also take charge of the senior national team, or only the teams up to the U-21s?

Sandrock: We clearly defined the sporting director’s responsibilities with Robin Dutt. It meant we resolved the conflicts we saw between Matthias Sammer and Joachim Löw before they could arise.

Question: So the new man won't be national coach Löw's ‘boss’?

Sandrock: That's not what we intend, no.

Question: There's not been much news recently about the proposed Centre of Excellence. Will it come, and if so where?

Sandrock: When the subject was raised, too much of the talk was at a superficial level. A subject like this has a significant impact, both financially and structurally, so we're talking to the broadest possible cross-section of interested parties. Most recently, we visited the regional associations. At the present time, we've appointed an external service provider to conduct interviews with every operating group in the world of football, from the groundsmen up to the chairmen. We'll evaluate the whole thing at the end, and we'll take it forward in committee.

Question: So it'll come, somewhere, sometime?

Sandrock: I'm not going to double guess the committee, because the subject is far too significant. The first step is to lay a workable concept on the table as the basis for decision-making.

Question: National coach Joachim Löw recently signalled a fundamental readiness to extend his contract beyond the 2014 World Cup. When would the DFB like to sort out the extension, so we don't go into another World Cup with the contractual situation up in the air?

Sandrock: We’ve said we'll wait and see what happens in qualifying, where we're very much on track. The appropriate moment to sit round a table is certainly after that.

Question: Will Oliver Bierhoff also be at the table? The national team manager recently stated he could also imagine a future role at club level.

Sandrock: Oliver was thinking out loud about how the moment can come when it’s time to do something different. But he's not said anything to us in that respect, quite the opposite: he's totally motivated for the World Cup. So at this moment in time, I'm assuming we'll hold talks with the entire staff.

Question: The U-21 European Championship in Israel was a major disappointment, with Germany knocked out at the group stage. The head coach has been replaced, so is that the final response to this failure?

Sandrock: We performed an initial analysis immediately after the tournament. Based on this, we took a personnel decision, which we absolutely stand by. The coaches are now working their way through the lessons to be learned in footballing terms. Looking at the performances of Spain, for example, we can definitely draw conclusions.

Question: Might one of the conclusions be to contest the next U-21 EURO with the best team and nothing less?

Sandrock: In recent years, it's always only been the nations who competed with their best team who’ve won the trophy - including us in 2009, as it happens.

Question: So this year we should have gone with players of the eligible generation like André Schürrle or Julian Draxler, even though they’ve already played themselves into the senior squad?

Sandrock: We had a special situation this year because of the senior national team’s tour to the USA. But if you intend to win trophies at this level, you need your best team - and we want to win trophies. I think the league will go along with us in this respect.

Question: What does Löw think of the debate?

Sandrock: The national coach is obviously always involved in the discussion. In individual cases, we would definitely also talk about a particular player. But the basic principle is to travel to a tournament with the best possible team.

Question: Which wasn't the case this time…

Sandrock: We had to compromise, because as mentioned it was a unique situation. Fundamentally, the principle applies that we don't develop players just for the sake of development. We want to win tournaments with the best players. An international tournament like this brings every player on, as anyone who's experienced it will confirm.

Question: After FIFA president Sepp Blatter's sudden U-turn, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar could well take place in winter. The DFB has always taken a clear stance on this, so you must have been pleased when you heard the news.

Sandrock: Speaking through our president Wolfgang Niersbach, we’ve always expressed incomprehension about the plan to play in Qatar in the summer. So in this sense, we’re basically pleased there's been movement on the subject. But in my opinion, Mr Blatter would do well to consult the footballing family before going public with this kind of U-turn - the result of which I consider absolutely right, but the English are against it, for example.

Question: Were you surprised by the U-turn?

Sandrock: More to the point, I'm asking myself why the climactic conditions for the players and fans have only become an issue, and been so critically examined, now and not before.

Question: In recent weeks, a number of long-standing clubs have entered administration or have been refused a licence. Are you worried about this?

Sandrock: Long-standing, tradition-rich clubs should consider whether tradition alone is enough. The targets you set yourself must chime with your financial resources. I used to work for one of these clubs [MSV Duisburg] so I know you can often become obsessed and driven. But that mustn't lead to spending more than you earn. It's not just the current cases such as Duisburg, Aachen and Wuppertal, we've had the likes of Rot-Weiss Essen and Waldhof Mannheim in the past.

Question: Are self-inflicted problems the only things to blame, or might the DFB need to consider a different method of distributing income from the third division, which falls under the association’s control?

Sandrock: The clubs are autonomous commercial enterprises, which is something they repeatedly insist upon. And there are examples of long-standing clubs who successfully consolidated and made comebacks, including spells in the third division. Eintracht Braunschweig and Fortuna Düsseldorf are good examples of stable management, always knowing they have a strong footballing base and can rise again even from the third tier.