After a long vacancy, the post of sports director at RB Leipzig has been filled. As the Saxons announced on Monday (September 19th, 2022), Max Eberl will join the Bundesliga club and reigning DFB Cup winner as Managing Director Sport from December 15th.
Eberl signs “long-term” with RB
Eberl, who was sports director at Borussia Mönchengladbach until January, was considered the preferred candidate by RB managing director Oliver Mintzlaff and, according to the club, will receive a “long-term” contract. RB did not provide any information about the exact term of its working paper. According to information from “Bild”, Eberl is said to have signed by the summer of 2026.
For the former Bundesliga professional, RB is said to have transferred a transfer fee of 2.5 million euros plus bonuses to the Lower Rhine. As a member of the management board, Eberl will have more influence and responsibility than any sporting director at RB Leipzig before. At his new employer, Eberl also meets coach Marco Rose, with whom he worked in Gladbach from 2019 to 2021. Rose was signed as the successor to Domenico Tedesco just under two weeks ago.
Mintzlaff: Eberl “an absolute football expert”
“With Max Eberl, we were able to fill the position of Managing Director Sport with our absolute dream candidate. We have been dealing with Max for a long time, but have always respected his difficult situation and are now very happy to be able to start working together in December,” says Mintzlaff in quoted in an official press release from the association. The new RB sports director, according to Mintzlaff “an absolute football expert”, will start his new work two weeks before the start of the winter transfer window.
In Leipzig, Eberl closes a gap that has existed for more than a year and ends a long search for a successor to Markus Krösche, who left RB in May last year and then went to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Eberl “ready again and full of strength”
Eberl himself was “very happy that we can now announce my move to RB Leipzig today. I’m grateful for the time I needed to rest and I feel ready and full of energy again to want to work in football.”
In January of this year, Eberl announced his retirement from active business at a press conference, citing, among other things, great exhaustion. His upcoming move to Leipzig had caused a lot of excitement in the past few weeks. The Gladbach fan project sharply attacked the 48-year-old and accused him of having initiated a “drama” at the press conference in January.
Eberl sees “huge potential in Leipzig – in the entire club and the entire region. Using and developing this potential is an incredibly appealing task for me. Likewise, the trusting discussions of the last few weeks with RB Leipzig about Oliver Mintzlaff and the associated Appreciation also in the sense that the club respects my break until after the World Cup made it clear to me that this is exactly the task I want to take on.”