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Darmstadt part ways with Meier

Chuck Penfold dpa
December 5, 2016

Darmstadt 98 have parted company with head coach Norbert Meier and sporting director Holger Fach. The move follows Darmstadt's 2-0 defeat at the hands of fellow strugglers Hamburg on the weekend.

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Deutschland Fußball Bundesliga Trainer Nobert Meier
Image: picture-alliance/Norbert Schmidt

The Bundesliga club, which slipped to 16th place in the standings as a result of their defeat at home to Hamburg on Sunday, announced that they had parted ways with Norbert Meier (pictured above) and Holger Fach in a short statement posted on their website on Monday.

"Having analyzed the situation after yesterday's match, we have come to the conclusion that we need new stimulus to counter the current negative trend. It is for this reason that we have decided to make this move," the club's president, Rüdiger Fritsch, said.  "We thank Norbert Meier and Holger Fach for their work."

Sunday's loss was Darmstadt's fifth in a row and Hamburg's first win of the season.

The statement also said that youth team coach Ramon Berndroth would act as caretaker head coach, to be supported by athletics trainer and match analyst Kai Peter Schmitz, as well as the goalkeeping coach, Dimo Wache. 

The 58-year-old Meier had joined Darmstadt just this past summer following the departure of Dirk Schuster, who moved on to Augsburg.

He is the fifth Bundesliga coach to be fired this season, following Viktor Skripnik (Bremen), Bruno Labbadia (Hamburg), Dieter Hecking (Wolfsburg) and Markus Kauczinski (Ingolstadt).

It later emerged that sporting director Fach had not actually been fired, but instead elected to go of his own accord, as he did not accept the board's decision to sack Meier.