Comes early from KSV
©IMAGO
In the new year, Dynamo Dresden will hand over responsibility in the sporting area to a former SGD player. Sören Gonther is leaving Hessen Kassel six months before the end of his contract and will be the sports director of the Saxon second division club from January 1st. The club announced this decision by the supervisory board on Monday.
The search for a successor to Thomas Brendel took about a month and a half. “We deliberately gave ourselves the necessary time to explore the candidates in order to make a sensible and promising decision for the future,” explained the chairman of the supervisory board, Michael Ziegenbalg. Brendel was released at the beginning of November. The club said at the time that there were “major disagreements and differences” in the management of the club. “With Sören Gonther we have been able to win over a football expert who has proven his skills both as an active player and in recent years as a manager,” said Ziegenbalg.
Gonther was under contract as a player in Dresden for two years from 2018 to 2019. However, he had previously left a bigger mark at SC Paderborn and FC St. Pauli for years. The active career ended in 2022 at Erzgebirge Aue; it began in his youth in Kassel, from where Gonther is now moving to Dresden. He has been managing director at KSV since summer 2023. “In Kassel, he made a significant contribution to the professionalization of the club and, among other things, further developed the integration between the youth and professional areas,” Ziegenbalg attested. “He has an excellent network and knows our club from his time as a professional player. He is familiar with the current and upcoming tasks and will immediately put his experience, his football expertise and his leadership at the service of the sports community.”
Transfer fee for KSV and test match between Dynamo Dresden and Kassel
A club statement from KSV stated that part of the change agreement was a test match between Kassel and Dynamo in the new year. It was agreed not to disclose the further modalities – the transfer fee. “The board and supervisory board of KSV Hessen Kassel would like to thank Sören Gonther for his commitment and his meritorious work in recent years,” says the KSV statement. “Under his leadership, numerous strategic projects were initiated in the area of club development, around the professionalization of the first men’s team as well as in the reorganization of the youth and women’s areas, thereby further developing the structures of KSV Hessen Kassel.”
Gonther, who would have been tied to Kassel until the summer, said in the Dresdener’s statement: “I am really looking forward to returning to Dresden. I have followed the SGD in recent years and have been able to follow developments on the sidelines up close. Together we have the big goal of achieving relegation with Dynamo and also further stabilizing ourselves in the 2nd Bundesliga. The sporting area of the club with the youth academy and the women’s teams promises great development potential for the future, which we are continuing to develop “Now we have to make good decisions when working together.”