Dimitrij Ovtcharov caused a stir with a message on Instagram. With his critical posting, the 34-year-old top player indicates that he could leave the table tennis Bundesliga. Especially in the focus of his criticism: the double role of Andreas Preuss.
Olympic bronze medalist Dimitrij Ovtcharov from TTC Neu-Ulm has announced his departure from the Table Tennis Bundesliga (TTBL). "Unfortunately, it's more than questionable whether I can continue in the TTBL as my teammates Truls and Yun-Ju have been suspended from the league and fined financially ", Ovtcharov wrote on Instagram on Monday evening.
A few hours earlier, the 34-year-old had also sharply attacked the league in a post, but Ovtcharov later deleted this criticism. The exceptional player had criticized Andreas Preuss' dual role: The manager works for Neu-Ulm's league competitor Borussia Düsseldorf and is also the head of the TTBL supervisory board.
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 Bayrischer Rundfunk.
The TTBL did not want to comment on Ovtcharov's criticism on Monday evening 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.
