Noah Katterbach goes to HSV – Ljubicic changes agent

Despite the ban, 1. FC Köln is active on the transfer market – and is still giving away a player. Another would like to change, but is not allowed to yet.

1. FC Köln has to watch as other clubs in Germany strengthen themselves, including their direct competition. This is the fate of the billy goats who have acquired a transfer ban and will only be allowed to sign new players in a year. However, FC is allowed to give away players, and this happens again shortly before the end of the January transfers.

Noah Katterbach is on his way to Hamburger SV and the transfer should be completed on Wednesday. The Cologne team can thus remove the top earner in their squad from the payroll – with a severance payment, but still in such a way that the FC can save a few hundred thousand euros. After all, Katterbach earns almost two million euros a year at FC.

HSV is not paying a transfer fee for the 22-year-old, but would have to transfer a six-figure bonus to FC in the event of promotion. Katterbach is reportedly receiving a three-and-a-half-year contract with the second division club until 2027 and is expected to maintain the Hanseatic team’s promotion dreams as a left-back. At FC, however, where Katterbach’s youth career began and where he made his debut in the Bundesliga, his path has come to an end.

The billy goats have already introduced their next homegrown player to the Bundesliga in Max Finkgräfe and behind him an experienced competitor in the squad, Leart Pacarada. So there was no room for Katterbach, who played a role neither under Steffen Baumgart nor, most recently, under Timo Schultz. Due to his high salary, he has long been considered a candidate for a change.

Another FC professional, on the other hand, would like to leave the billy goats, but is not allowed to. Dejan Ljubicic would have liked to leave last summer and move to VfL Wolfsburg. But the FC put a stop to this. It was recently indicated that Cologne would have been willing to let Ljubicic go in January if they could have financed other transfers. The transfer ban ruined this plan.

Now the Austrian is stuck in Cologne and his performances do not indicate that the 26-year-old could turn things around at FC again. Ljubicic is considered one of the biggest disappointments of the season so far, zero goals and zero assists speak for themselves for the variable and actually dangerous midfielder.

However, people at Geißbockheim are definitely worried about the supposed top performer. At the beginning of the week it was announced that Ljubicic had changed his agent for the fourth (!) time in just one year. In spring 2023 he left his long-standing agency to join Dirk Hebel. Lever then ended the collaboration in the summer of 2023 after Ljubicic was offered an offer through another advisor in Wolfsburg. Christian Marth then took over the supervision. But this cooperation is now history.

The Sports 360 agency snapped up Ljubicic, and with it none other than Volker Struth. The consultant’s goal is not only to get the 26-year-old back on track, but also to find a new club in the summer of 2024. It is ruled out that Ljubicic will stay in Cologne for the next six months. The billy goats don’t actually want to give up top performers, but they would at least be willing to talk to Ljubicic.

Because FC also knows: the midfielder’s contract expires a year later. The people of Cologne need money for the planned major offensive in January 2025. A million-dollar transfer for Ljubicic six months earlier would be an important financial injection, and if the 26-year-old had not gotten back into shape by then, he would also have to be replaced on the pitch in terms of sport. But everyone involved would prefer Ljubicic to help FC stay in the league – and then leave the club in peace and with a good market value in the summer.