BSW politician Ruhnert wants to return to football after election failure

Long-time Bundesliga manager Oliver Ruhnert is returning to professional football after his failed candidacy for the Bundestag. According to consistent media reports, the 53-year-old BSW politician will speak with 1. FC Union Berlin this week about further cooperation.

"Everyone knows how much I love my job in football. Of course I want to continue to be active there," said Ruhnert at t-online.de. "People who run for a public mandate are more likely to return to their job if they don't win the election."

The former head of FC Schalke 04 's youth department worked for Union since 2017, first as chief scout and then as sports director. At his own request, Ruhnert took over the position of chief scout again before this season and left it on hold from January 2025 to concentrate on his election campaign for the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance. His successor as sports director was Horst Heldt, an ex-Schalke player.

In the federal election on Sunday, however, the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance, which was founded just a year ago, narrowly failed to clear the five percent hurdle. Even Ruhnert herself, as a direct candidate in the Berlin-Marzahn-Hellersdorf constituency, only achieved the fifth-best result of eight candidates with 8.6 percent of the vote.

The AfD candidate Gottfried Curio won the direct mandate with 29.5 percent of the vote. He was followed by CDU candidate Mario Czaja (29.2 percent), Left Party candidate Katalin Gennburg (16.8 percent) and Ben Schneider from the SPD (8.7 percent). Ruhnert was still able to leave behind Green Party candidate Maren Tepper (4.1), Konrad Klamann from the FDP (1.3) and Peter Schmidt from the Free Voters (1.2).

"We have always focused on the second vote campaign and have not made any great efforts for direct candidates. This is mainly why I am not dissatisfied with just under eleven percent there, especially as it is the best result in Berlin," Oliver Ruhnert explained to "t-online" on Monday. Everything else will be revealed in the future, "the election is still too fresh for that."

Ruhnert's contract with 1. FC Union is still in effect until the end of February. "To be honest, I feel very comfortable in my role as chief scout and am not currently looking for any other roles," said Ruhnert.