The TTC Neu-Ulm is withdrawing from the table tennis Bundesliga after only four years and wants to concentrate solely on the Champions League with stars like Dimitrij Ovtcharov. The club announced this on Thursday in a press release and in a letter to the league association TTBL.
The Neu-Ulmer did not apply for a Bundesliga license for the next season shortly after the deadline and wrote in their message: “The fact that the farewell has to take place right now after the Final Four in the cup, which was won so magnificently, in front of a great home crowd, that is bitter and really hurts everyone involved!”
The background to this withdrawal is a dispute with the TTBL over the two New Ulm stars Truls Moregardh (Sweden) and Lin Yun-ju (Taiwan). Both also played for different clubs abroad in January and were therefore fined and suspended for ten games by the league. However, this ban will not apply until the coming season.
The cup winner and Champions League semi-finalist Neu-Ulm lodged a protest before an arbitral tribunal, but does not expect a verdict for six to eight weeks. “The two players cannot and do not want to wait two or three months for the arbitral tribunal to decide whether they can continue to play,” the cup winner said in a statement.
However, the ban does not apply in the Champions League. As in the past two years, the Ulm club are relying on a wild card from the European association ETTU. “We very much regret that the club no longer wants to apply for a Bundesliga license,” said league manager Nico Stehle. “But the club has shown on several occasions that it’s not about the league at all. He also doesn’t respect the league as an institution that protects its rules.”
