Fabian Wohlgemuth will be promoted to sporting director at VfB Stuttgart on July 1 – and is currently battling the curse of exit clauses
After Hiroki Ito’s move to Bayern Munich, Waldemar Anton is also leaving VfB Stuttgart for Dortmund via an exit clause. In Serhou Guirassy and Chris Führich, two other stars have clauses that are making life difficult for the Swabians’ new sporting director. But from the VfB boss’ point of view, the real cause lies elsewhere.
“Exit clauses are basically not a problem in the same salary bracket with other clubs from above,” says Wohlgemuth. “The problem, if you want to call it that, is the almost unprecedented development of the last year.” The promotion from near-relegation to Champions League contender means that Stuttgart’s top performers are now of interest to clubs with completely different financial possibilities
“Convincing someone to forgo a tripling of their salary is quite a plank,” explains Wohlgemuth. “The contracts we’re talking about now came about in a sporting reality in which we struggled to finish in the top flight for the second time in a row. Applying today’s standards is a little too simple. We were only able to keep a lot of quality in Stuttgart back then by making a few concessions. “
The exit clauses are therefore “not the sour apple, but the expression of our current economic limits. The moment we are in a position to pay comparable salaries, exit clauses are no longer a problem”.
However, VfB is not yet at that stage. Wohlgemuth must therefore expect more stars to leave – and wants to manage the situation in a similar way to the summer of 2023: “We will not develop further without changes. When we had to let go of Borna Sosa, Konstantinos Mavropanos and Wataru Endo last year, the team and club found the right answers. Accepting the situation and dealing with it has made us strong. “
