After falling into the 3rd football league, Fortuna Düsseldorf has apparently separated from sports director Sven Mislintat. This was reported by several media outlets, including “Bild”, “Kicker” and “Sky”, on Saturday evening.
Accordingly, the supervisory board decided against further collaboration with the 53-year-old. Former Bielefeld native Samir Arabi will be responsible for rebuilding after relegation. The separation from Mislintat should be announced on Sunday and the contract should be terminated by mutual agreement.
The former Dortmund and Stuttgart official only had in December Dusseldorf hired as Klaus Allofs’ successor. After the bitter last match day, when Fortuna slipped into a direct relegation spot after losing 3-0 at Greuther Fürth, Mislintat was still fighting.
“I’m not the one who leaves when I’m relegated – on the contrary, that’s when I’m even more there,” said Mislintat, but pointed out that the supervisory board would ultimately have to decide on him. However, he decided against him.
Samir Arabi has been chosen as a replacement
Arabi is expected to carry out the reconstruction between 2011 and 2023 sport-Managing Director at Arminia Bielefeld. The 47-year-old is said to have been a candidate on the Rhine after separating from Allofs.
Arabi would find a difficult task in the state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia. Following the relegation of the club, which had previously set its sights on promotion to the Bundesliga before the season, only ten players have a contract for League Three, including four young talents with no professional experience.
However, the 47-year-old has experience with difficult situations. When Arabi started as sporting director in Bielefeld in 2011, Arminia was on the verge of financial and sporting ruin. Shortly after he took office, the DSC was relegated to the 3rd league and was faced with an enormous change in personnel.
Arabi important factor in the reconstruction of Bielefeld
The Aachen native played a key role in the club’s financial consolidation in the coming years. The positive development culminated in promotion to the Bundesliga in the 2019/20 season.
In the WDR2 podcast #simplyfootball At the end of March, in a conversation with Sven Pistor and Conni Kleine, Arabi described the immense problems that the then DSC sports director was faced with at the time and how important the work in the team is.
Our sources:
- Sports Information Service (sid)
Broadcast: wdr.de“Fortuna Dusseldorf separates from sports director Mislintat”, June 24, 2026 11:40 am
