Eintracht Frankfurt are set to bring back Joti Chatzialexiou as Markus Krösche's successor, with SPORT1 reporting that the club have activated a €400,000 release clause in his 1. FC Nürnberg contract. The move is due to take effect on 1 February 2027. It is a homecoming, but it is also a paid appointment.
A return to familiar ground
Chatzialexiou is not a new face in Frankfurt. He coached the SGE youth team from 2001 to 2009 before moving into this role elsewhere, and SPORT1 says the club's recruitment push now takes him back to the same set-up he already knows.
He also fits the direction Frankfurt want to lean into. Mathias Beck said the club want to “promote our own talents even more strongly, take a closer look at the German market and at the same time maintain our international ambitions.” Beck added that “Joti brings excellent prerequisites for this.”
The cost is not trivial for a sporting-director move. Frankfurt are paying €400,000 to get him out of Nürnberg, which tells you they are treating the role as part of the club's structure rather than a routine backroom hire. Frankfurt sit 8th in the Bundesliga with 11 points from 8 matches, so the new sporting director arrives with a first look at a side that has been steady without fully convincing.
Panagiotis Chatzialexiou's link to the club also matters here. He was involved while Frankfurt handled the transfers of Nathaniel Brown and Can Uzun, so this is not a completely fresh start. SPORT1 also reported that he received a €1 million annual salary at Eintracht Frankfurt.
The headline is the clause, though. Frankfurt are not waiting for a natural handover, they are paying to pull back a former academy coach who knows the club and fits the recruitment direction Beck described. If the appointment goes through as reported, Chatzialexiou starts on 1 February 2027.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
