Olympic bronze medalist Dimitrij Ovtcharov indicated his departure from TTC Neu-Ulm and at the same time sharply criticized the structures of the Table Tennis Bundesliga (TTBL).
“Playing in a league where the chairman of the supervisory board is also the person in charge of Borussia Düsseldorf and decides everything to achieve a personal advantage is difficult for me and my teammates to imagine,” Ovtcharov wrote on Instagram on Monday.
The 34-year-old also questioned the future of his team-mates Truls Möregardh and Lin Yun-Ju. At the moment he “unfortunately doubts very much whether Truls, Yun-Ju and I will continue to play in the TTBL,” wrote the exceptional German player.
Ovtcharov referred to Andreas Preuss: The manager works for Neu-Ulm’s league competitor Borussia Düsseldorf and is also the head of the TTBL supervisory board.
However, Ovtcharov was not specific in his criticism. He simply wrote: “Hopefully the TTBL can have an independent board in the future!!! I’m sure it would be better for the sport.”
A fuss about teammates from Dimitrij Ovtcharov
Recently there had been a stir about Ovtcharov’s teammates Möregardh and Yun-Ju. The two players are mainly intended for assignments outside of the Bundesliga. For more match practice, the club loaned the two players to other clubs in Japan and Sweden, but did not submit the required applications to the TTBL in time.
The league subsequently suspended Möregardh and Yun-Ju for ten games and imposed a penalty of €10,000 each.
“We knew that they violated the contract. We also checked the contracts beforehand. We simply have a different interpretation of the contracts about the consequences,” said Neu-Ulm’s club boss Florian Ebener recently on “Bayrische Rundfunk”.
The TTBL did not want to comment on the “SID” request on Monday evening about Ovtcharov’s allegations and referred to Tuesday. Neu-Ulm and Düsseldorf are fierce competitors in the TTBL and at international level: on Sunday, the Rhinelanders around record European champion Timo Boll made it into the Champions League final against Neu-Ulm.