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Stefan Krämer has already seen a lot in his career.

Almost 300 third division games with Arminia Bielefeld, Energie Cottbus, Erfurt, Magdeburg and Uerdingen harden, make experience.

Nothing can shake the football coach so quickly.

What is currently happening at his club KFC Uerdingen is also an extraordinary situation for the 53-year-old.

“Driving 200 kilometers to the home game is kind of funny,” said Krämer at MagentaSport before the game against MSV Duisburg on Saturday: “Whenever you think you've been through everything in football, there's something new to add. “A sentence, said with a view to the unfamiliar venue in Lotte.

A sentence that has been true for weeks for everything that happens to the experienced head coach at KFC.

Always a friend of clear words: Stefan Krämer vividly describes the precarious situation at KFC

Source: pa / photo booth / van der Velden

For a long time there had been financial bottlenecks at the third division.

In addition, the search for a home ground was sometimes colorful.

The Grotenburg Stadium in Krefeld is not suitable for the third division and is still under renovation.

The long-practiced move to Düsseldorf became too expensive in the corona pandemic.

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And with the withdrawal of investor Mikhail Ponomarev, the situation at the traditional club had worsened dramatically.

Insolvency proceedings were initiated at the end of January.

Since then, the club and employees have faced an uncertain situation.

“We're used to grief.

The team has been left in the lurch for months, more or less shamefully, "criticized Krämer and gave astonishing insights into daily practice:" We have no training conditions, the players buy their water themselves, the physios have to buy their massage oil themselves, we have no more cutting program for the video analysts.

We can't do much thematically.

We can see that the players move a little without injuring themselves. "

Players have only received money sporadically for months

It is hardly surprising that his ambitious team was passed through in the table.

A deduction of three points due to the opened insolvency proceedings did the rest.

After the 1: 2 against Duisburg, the KFC now slipped to a relegation zone for the first time.

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“If the conditions do not improve suddenly, then we will eventually catch up with the fact that we actually have conditions like a bad company team,” says Krämer, who cannot blame the players, however.

“The players haven't received a regular salary for months.

We don't know whether fresh money will come.

We don't know what tomorrow will be, "he says, shrugging his shoulders and explaining the effects:" Of course that does something to the players.

Especially with the players - and there are quite a few of them - who could have switched to other clubs in winter.

A bolt was put in place, and a few weeks later nobody knows what will happen next.

That does something to players. "

As difficult as the situation may be, there is one thing that Krämer does not allow for: the solidarity within the team: “The troop is really cool there.

They help each other with coal.

We have such a pot: If someone has problems, then he can get something out of it, and if there is something again at some point, then he just puts it back. "

An attitude that gives hope for relegation.

Provided that the KFC finds new sponsors or investors and receives the required license.