Kaiserslautern sack Kurz

Marco Kurz: Joined Kaiserslautern at the beginning of the 2009/10 season

Kaiserslautern have announced the sacking of manager Marco Kurz with immediate effect.

The Bundesliga's bottom club took the decision in the wake of Sunday's 4-1 defeat at Schalke and the 42-year-old was relieved of his duties on Tuesday morning.

Kurz's assistant manager, Gunther Gorenzel, has also left Fritz-Walter-Stadion to mean goalkeeper coach Gerald Ehrmann and fitness coach Oliver Schafer took first-team training on Tuesday.

Kurz had taken charge of Kaiserslautern at the beginning of the 2009/10 season and led the club back to the Bundesliga before finishing seventh in the top flight in the last campaign.

Unfortunate

But Kaiserslautern chief executive Stefan Kuntz has confirmed the club had to act amid the current threat of relegation and a 16-game winless run.

"After the 4-1 defeat against Schalke and many intensive discussions, we have come to the common belief that we must take this step," Kuntz told Kaiserslautern's official website.

"We have in recent weeks and months (tried) many different measures to bring the team on track. Unfortunately, this was not successful.

"This move is very difficult, because Marco Kurz was always completely at the service of the cause and the association."

Kuntz added: "However, in order to have truly exhausted every possible option for the league, we need to go this route (sacking)."