Arsenal new Head Recruitment, Sven Mislintat, has revealed why he left Borussia Dortmund to join the Gunners, citing a major fallout with his former club.
Mislintat admitted to Kicker that he had turned down a lot of offers from other clubs for his services, but remained loyal to Dortmund until things soured behind the scenes.
The 45-year-old revealed a fallout with former manager Thomas Tuchel led to him leaving the club. “I probably never would have considered thinking about other clubs. I already had offers in the past years, but I never really considered making changes,” he said, reports the Standard.
“But the training ground ban, initiated by the club’s former coach, as well as the instructions to keep away from the inner circle, from players, from the staff, from many friends with whom I worked so closely throughout the years, all of that influenced my thinking.”
After leaving the club, Mislintat hailed the work of Chief Executive Hans-Joachim Watzke and Sporting Director Michael Zorc – the latter of which has been linked with a move to Arsenal. The Gunners’ Head of Recruitment spent 10 years at Dortmund, and has been credit for the development of Robert Lewandowski, Ousmane Dembele and Shinji Kagawa.
Bayern Munich were reported to be a club keen on Mislintat’s signature, before a disagreement over a failure to sign Atletico Madrid midfielder Oliver Torres in January 2016 led to an exit more than 18 months later. Dortmund’s loss could be Arsenal’s gain, however, as the 45-year-old has been highly-rated by many.
Supporters will be hoping he doesn’t incur any problems with Arsene Wenger, like he did with the German giants.