2.Bundesliga: Everything indicates that Gibbs will have a new coach after the winter break. St Pauli is on a 10 game winless streak and lost a club high of 4 straight home games. Coach Joachim Philipkowski, who started the season as assistant and was moved up when former head coach Dietmar Demuth was fired, might also be fired or moved back to the assistant position. It can also be expected that sports director Franz Gerber will be sacked as well. GM Stephan Beutel has the entire power in the club after St Pauli found a new President who has no clue about soccer – the old and good President retired after some of the very idealistic St Pauli members wanted to get rid off him as he planned to build a new stadium for their old ruin Millerntor. Next to a new coach St Pauli wants to sign 3 to 5 new players, one of them will be a goalie, a further one might be a rival for Gibbs. Winter standings, 17 of 34 matchdays are played, no re-scheduled games to be played. Three teams promote, four relegate. 2.Bundesliga resumes playing on January 26th. 1 1.FC Köln +18, 39 2 Eintracht Frankfurt +14, 33 3 SC Freiburg +11, 33 4 FSV MAINZ +11, 30 5 Alemannia Aachen +9, 29 6 Eintracht Trier +8, 27 7 MSV Duisburg +3, 27 8 Rot-Weiß Oberhausen +1, 26 9 Greuther Fürth +6, 25 10 VfB Lübeck +1, 22 11 Wacker Burghausen +4, 21 12 Union Berlin –12, 21 13 SSV Reutlingen –2, 18 14 Karlsruher SC –8, 17 15 Waldhof Mannheim –16, 14 16 LR Ahlen –10, 13 17 EINTRACHT BRAUNSCHWEIG –19, 10 18 FC ST. PAULI –19, 9 Regionalliga Nord: Verl vs Osnabrück 1-0 Maurer and Enochs went full 90. Osnabrück’s live ticker just mentioned that Enochs achieved to get a yellow for his opponent and Maurer once lost a one on one situation with an Osnabrück forward who hit the post. Osnabrück’s Sunday newspapers wrote that goalie Brunn and Enochs were the only players reaching the usual shape. Enochs was quoted “In the first half we didn’t play good. That was no soccer. The second half was even. At the end we had bad luck with the possibilities of Claaßen and Vier” Winter break in Regionalliga Nord now until March 1st. 20 of 34 matchdays are over, no postponed gamed left to be played. The first two promote unless this are the reserves of pro teams (marked with Ama), four teams relegate. 1 Rot-Weiß Essen +20, 38 2 Borussia Dortmund Ama +12, 35 3 VFL OSNABRÜCK +9, 34 4 WERDER BREMEN AMA +5, 34 5 SG Wattenscheid +10, 33 6 Erzgebirge Aue +8, 33 7 Dynamo Dresden +5, 32 8 SC Paderborn +5, 30 9 Bayer Leverkusen Ama +4, 27 10 Hamburger SV Ama –7, 26 11 1.FC Köln Ama +1, 25 12 SC VERL –6, 25 13 Chemnitzer FC –4, 24 14 Holstein Kiel –3, 22 15 SV Babelsberg –11, 20 16 Preußen Münster –12, 19 17 KFC Uerdingen –18, 19 18 Dresdner SC –18, 14 Regionalliga Süd: Siegen vs Unterhaching 1-3 Van Buskirk went full 90, but had no mentioning in Siegen’s live ticker. Siegen scored the lead quite early, but two goals in the five minutes before and one goal in the five minutes after the break decided the game for the club from Munich’s suburbs. Jamath Shoffner will have a new coach after he’s recovered from the knee surgery. Jörg Nehren terminated his contract for December 31st to allow the financially weak club to save some money. Winter break also here until March 1st. 21 of 36 games are played, 2 promote, 5 relegate. There’s one postponed game left to be played (Neunkirchen vs Offenbach); Unterhaching, Erfurt and Schweinfurt already had one weekend off, so all other teams have one game less than these five. 1 SpVgg Unterhaching +25, 42 2 Jahn Regensburg +25, 42 3 1.FC SAARBRÜCKEN +4, 38 4 FC Augsburg +9, 33 5 TSG Hoffenheim +14, 32 6 Rot-Weiß Erfurt +5, 32 7 SC Pfullendorf +3, 32 8 Bayern Munich Ama +4, 29 9 SPORTFREUNDE SIEGEN –3, 29 10 VfR Aalen –4, 28 11 Kickers Offenbach +2, 27 12 Stuttgarter Kickers –6, 26 13 SV Darmstadt –6, 26 14 SV WEHEN –2, 24 15 1.FC Kaiserslautern Ama –6, 24 16 Eintracht Frankfurt Ama –16, 24 17 SV ELVERSBERG –15, 22 18 FC Schweinfurt –3, 17 19 BORUSSIA NEUNKIRCHEN –30, 9
Why doesn't Gibbs have a relegation clause in his contract? He needs to stay in the 2nd division at a minimum. Good god St. Pauli goes from the Bundesliga to the bottom of the 2nd division in one year? I'd say it's time Gibbs found a new team.
If he didn't have a relegation clause last year, why would he this year? The kid was fresh out of college; what kind of leverage would he have when negotiating his contract?
I guess he and his agent never figured they'd be in for a drop to the 3rd division. Anyone remember how many years he signed for? Hopefully three at max, after he's released I'm sure he could at least get a gig in the 2nd Bundesliga if not with a newly promoted 1st division tema.
So, how might this work? He has a contract, it must be honored? If another club wants him and it seems he could go to another BL2 team by mutual agreement? That might be the best. Otherwise ST.Pauli goes into the German equivalent of Chapter 11 in order to void the contracts. That seems like a bit much. That sounds like something that would take years in the 3rd Divison to resolve.
Dropping from the 2 Bundesliga into the Regionalliga is a move from "professional" football to "amature" football. The amatures get paid but not as much. I believe there are also age restrictions of who can sign an amature contract. Gibbs signed both an amature and professional contract, as have a couple others on the team. He signed it so that if he didn't get playing time on the first team, he could play with the amature side in the IIRC Oberliga (4th Division). If St. Pauli makes the drop, any player without an amature contract is not legally able to remain a St. Pauli player - hence the fire sale. Word from the Hamburg papers is that if St. Pauli makes the drop, they would try to keep anyone with an amature contract and promote the best players from their amature side in addition to any hires they could make. That means Gibbs would likely remain with the team unless they got a really good offer for him (which is unlikely).
Transfermarkt.de says he has a contract until 2004, estimated salary 150 K, estimated market value 250 K (latter two are just vague guesses IMO). The only thing mattering in his contract for the question if he's a free transfer in case of relegation, is whether he's signed a simple contract or whether he signed one is a pro-league clause. That's really difficult to answer, but 150 K (though also here there might be an e.g. 20% salary reduction for each lower division) would be much for Regionalliga, so St Pauli would probably try to sell him anyway. @Aarhus: tricky question. If they managed to stay in Bundesliga and don't get a license, then there'd be two to relegate to 2.Bundesliga. If they relegate and don't get a license, then it'll be difficult - might be that just three relegate to Regionalliga, but the experts only deal with such matters if it really happens or is close to this scenario.
Somebody else: Adam Maurer - the local media had a flashback on the first season half today. They say that he basically was transferred as perspective player, but he establisehd himself as firm player after coming out of the nothing. They report that last weekend Osnabrück's attacker Harun Isa gave up very soon against him as he didn't like Maurer's physical play and his quickness.
I'd like to see Gibbs and Gibson get USMNT call up for the Canada game in January. They certainly deserve a look, although neither has shined this fall.
This is the plan according the Hamburg Abendblatt: (Article in German and I don't have time to translate...sorry) http://www.abendblatt.de/daten/2002/12/16/104817.html
Says that in case of relegating St Pauli faces a massive cut in the budget (alone TV money drops from 4 M to 400 K). They also say that no pro player has a contract for D3, except the contractual amateurs, which include Cory Gibbs.
If St. Pauli does get relegated what are the chances Gibbs comes to MLS? I believe the Galaxy hold his rights if he does return.