Handball: Bundesliga discusses future of national coach Prokop

The management of the Handball Bundesliga (HBL) is pushing for a quick decision in the discussion about the ailing national coach Christian Prokop. As a spokesperson for the SID confirmed, the HBL presidency will hold a conference call on Wednesday to discuss the topic of Prokop.

At the end of the conference, according to information from Sport Bild, there will be a recommendation to be presented by league president Uwe Schwenker as DHB vice-chairman at the Presidium meeting of the German Handball Federation (Deutscher Handballbund, DHB) on Friday at the Allstar Games in Leipzig. After leaving the main round of the European Championship in Croatia, the headwind for Prokop (39) is considerable.

DHB Vice President Bob Hanning had previously announced an extensive analysis in the next four to six weeks. I hope that a decision on Christian Prokop’s continued employment will be made much sooner,”said Liga Managing Director Frank Bohmann to Sport Bild.

According to information from the newspaper, the Bundesliga is allegedly even willing to participate in a possible settlement in the event of dismissal of Prokops. In 2017, Prokop changed over to DHB for 500,000 euros from the Bundesliga club SC DHfK Leipzig, where he had signed a five-year contract without an exit clause. It is expected to earn 220,000 euros a year.

Axel Geerken, Managing Director of MT Melsungen, had recently sharply criticised Prokop:”I really don’t want to do him any harm, but as a national coach he seems to be overwhelmed,”Geerken told the trade magazine Handballwoche (Tuesday’s issue). We have to “think very carefully” about whether we are going to go to next year’s home World Cup with Prokop as national coach,”Geerken said.

As successor to Prokops, various names are already being speculated about, among them ex-women’s national coach Michael Biegler, Alfred Gislason of THW Kiel and the former Hamburg master coach Martin Schwalb. When someone is in office, you don’t speculate,”Schwalb told SID.