RB Leipzig's sporting director Max Eberl will not be a guest at ZDF's "Sportstudio" on Saturday evening as planned. The station refrains from an appearance of the 49-Year-old, because at Eberl's request "certain topics ("Causa Gladbach") should be largely excluded". This was announced by ZDF on Thursday. The "Sportstudio" editorial team did not want to comply with this wish. Instead, Marius Bülter from FC Schalke 04 will be a guest on Saturday.

According to RB Leipzig, Eberl has cancelled the appearance. "After an early commitment, I now refrain from my visit to the ZDF sports studio next Saturday," Eberl said on dpa request. He had faced the topics off the pitch around the game against Gladbach, although he wanted to finish with it. "Rather, it was partly interpreted as if I wanted to actively fuel the discussions. That was, despite all the emotion, not my intention," said Eberl.

According to dpa information, there should have been an agreement long before the Gladbach game that the interview in the "sports studio" should be directed forward. After the events of the weekend, when Eberl was once again the victim of offensive banners, ZDF wanted to go deeper into Eberl and his farewell from Gladbach. "I fully understand this when I put myself in their perspective," Eberl said. From his point of view, however, everything had been said several times: "I would like to leave it at that, put a hook on the topic and look ahead." Eberl had left Gladbach in January 2022 after 23 years as a player and sporting director due to health problems and then hired at RB last December.

At the first reunion with Borussia in his new function last Saturday, the 49-year-old was sharply attacked and also badly insulted by individual Gladbach fans. Before the game, Eberl had refrained from media appearances. On match day and the day after the match, however, the manager spoke in detail about Borussia and the lack of understanding of some Gladbach fans about his new job in the "Doppelpass" of the TV channel Sport1. RB Leipzig won the match 3-0.