Belgian becomes new sports director
Eurofighter Wilmots is supposed to save Schalke from crashing
January 4, 2024, 10:25 a.m
With Marc Wilmots, FC Schalke once celebrated the greatest success in the club’s history: the UEFA Cup victory in 1997. Now the Belgian is tasked with making the collapsed traditional football club fit for the first division again. The Royal Blues have appointed the 54-year-old as sports director on a long-term contract.
Club icon Marc Wilmots returns to second division football club Schalke 04 and becomes the new sports director. The 1997 UEFA Cup winner takes over the position with immediate effect and succeeds Peter Knäbel, who was recently removed from the board unexpectedly earlier than planned. The Royal Blues announced that Wilmots had signed a “long-term contract”.
“I’m really looking forward to my new job. Schalke 04 is a very special club for me, with which I celebrated great success as a player,” said the 54-year-old Belgian: “Now I want to be at the forefront of the movement “He will help Schalke gain new strength and shape a successful future.” In the “medium and long term” it must be about “developing the squad and returning to the Bundesliga”.
As sports director, Wilmots is responsible for the entire sporting area. As the club announced, Andre Hechelmann will also take on the newly created position of Technical Director.
The decision was made to “significantly strengthen the director level in sport. This is reflected in more competencies for the sports director and in the newly created position of technical director,” said the new CEO Matthias Tillmann. As a Belgian national coach, Wilmots “worked like a manager and developed all departments around the team sustainably. That’s exactly what we expect from him at Schalke.”
Wilmots came to Gelsenkirchen as a player in the summer of 1996 and was part of the “Eurofighters” in his first season, winning the 2002 DFB Cup with S04. After his career ended a year later, he worked for a short time as Schalke’s interim coach. After four years as Belgian national coach, Wilmots was most recently coach of Cote d’Ivoire and Iran.