What DSV says

Chaos club: Leoben fights back after Poms’ criticism!

March off! Former coach Rene Poms accuses Leoben chairman Bichler of ranting after his departure.(Bild: Sepp Pail)

DSV Leoben is sinking more and more into chaos after the cup exit and the surprising resignation of Rene Poms! After the head coach, the rest of the coaching staff, apart from the assistant coach, also filed for divorce. Head of sport Christoph Freitag has also left the second division club. Now a war of the roses is looming, which nobody actually wanted.

"Now I'm going to kick the shit out of you", Mario Bichler is said to have shouted to his coach from the stands during the Cup semi-final against Rapid. A crude remark that, according to Poms, caused the barrel under the blast furnaces to overflow. According to the former coach, it was not the only incident of this kind in recent months. Poms primarily directed serious accusations against the chairman, saying that nobody wanted to work with him anymore. Bichler defends himself: "I didn't shout anything down, I have 20 witnesses in the VIP stands. I sat next to ÖFB President Mitterdorfer for the whole game. We will take legal action."

DSV chairman Bichler defends himself against the accusations of former coach Poms(Bild: Sepp Pail)

After the "match of the century" against Rapid, things are hotting up at the traditional club. The DSV chairman is said to have told Poms via text message: "You have out-coached the team, lost two titles." "This message didn't come from me, I just passed it on to him," emphasized Bichler. "The fact is that he had the team train before the Rapid game on the Easter weekend and the team then had heavy legs." And, according to Bichler, was angry about it.

Ego accusations against Poms
"The goal was that we had to become champions and cup winners. Anyone who knows anything about soccer knows that's very unrealistic. Leoben is a promoted team, was still somewhere three years ago and is only now playing professional soccer again. It's presumptuous to demand that," said Poms in an interview with Laola.at. Bichler: "That's not true either! We wanted to spend the winter in the Cup, we never demanded the title, that would be unrealistic." The club in turn accuses the former coach of having too big an ego. "Our medical team left us because he wanted to tell them how to work. He wanted to interfere everywhere." The mud fight is on.