Legal battle brewing between Bayern Munich and youth coach dismissed for racism

The scandal involving allegations of racism against a youth coach at Bayern Munich has broadened into a legal battle. After Der Spiegel revealed that WhatsApp conversations documented racist language used by the coach in question in reference to players of minority backgrounds, Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge promised imminent consequences and the club announced it had dissolved its relationship with the coach “by mutual agreement” soon afterward.

Now, however, Der Spiegel (cf. TZ) reports that the coach in question is accusing Bayern of unfairly pressuring him to assent to his termination. According to Spiegel:

Five weeks after his dismissal from the German Rekordmeister, a longstanding youth coach of the club has broadened his lawsuit for unwarranted dismissal (Kündigungsschutz-Klage) before the court of labor with a serious accusation: top managers at Bayern allegedly pressured him to sign a termination agreement within an hour. Only then would the club withdraw his immediate termination, only then would his name not appear in a press release. The coach indeed signed the termination agreement on August 17, and the press release appeared that evening without his name.

The coach in question moreover says that he has learned of a “smear campaign” against him from the current director of the FC Bayern Campus, Jochen Sauer. The court has set a hearing for September 28.

Although the identity of the coach has not yet officially been revealed, he is rumored to be a youth coach who was on the cusp of transitioning to a leadership role as sporting director of Bayern’s younger teams. He has since vanished from the club’s official website, including an interview he gave on the club’s homepage shortly before the allegations of racism surfaced.

In addition to the racism documented in WhatsApp screenshots, one or more parents of youth players had previously complained of physical and emotional misconduct in anonymous letters.