1. FC Kaiserslautern: Marlon Ritter extended, quartet should go

Among the best scorers in the squad

1. FC Kaiserslautern is pushing ahead with its personnel planning. While Marlon Ritter (28) will stay with the club beyond the coming summer, four players are to leave. FCK announced on Tuesday that Ritter’s contract, which originally expired at the end of the season, has been extended in the long term. The “Red Devils” did not name an exact term.

“We are very happy that we were able to bind another important pillar of our game with Betze DNA to FCK in the long term and we hope that we can continue to achieve our common goals in the future,” said FCK Managing Director Thomas Hengen. Ritter switched from SC Paderborn to FCK in 2020, where he has played 89 games since then, scoring eleven goals and 14 assists – this season he is one of the best scorers in the squad with six goals involved. In the most recent market value update of the 2nd Bundesliga, he was one of the winners when he was up for 200,000 euros to his personal best of 700,000 euros.

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On the other hand, René Klingenburg (29), Maximilian Hippe (24), Muhammed Kiprit (23) and Anas Bakhat (22) have no future at FCK. This was announced by trainer Dirk Schuster on Monday at the start of training for the second half of the season. The quartet are expected to look for new clubs until January 11, when the team returns from the training camp in Belek, Turkey. “The deployment times for all four were very poor in the first half of the season,” said Schuster (quoted via “table football“).

While Klingenburg has been on the pitch for a minute this season, the other three players have not been used – Hippe and Bakhat were never part of the matchday squad. The situation was “unsatisfactory” for the four professionals, said Schuster, which is why they were told “to look for a fresh start at another club”. The coach said: “If possible, we want to find a consensus that they can continue their careers at another club where they can get more playing time.”

“One or two inquiries” are already available to FCK, Schuster announced – without going into detail. Klingenburg, Hippe and Kiprit all switched to the “Red Devils” in the summer of last year and came into action during the promotion season – their working papers expire at the end of June. The length of the contract for homegrown Bakhat, who has been part of the professional squad since 2019, is unknown.

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