Borussia Dortmund legend Mats Hummels is facing the wrath of his team’s angry fans, bitter that their club’s captain has agreed he wants to play for rivals Bayern Munich.
Despite helping Dortmund to a 5-1 rout of Wolfsburg, Hummels was booed and whistled by a section of home fans in their 81 359 sell-out stadium each time he touched the ball on Saturday.
The 27-year-old told Dortmund last Thursday that he wants to leave at the end of the season, with a year left on his contract, to join Bayern, who he left for Borussia in 2008.
Bayern’s chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge wants to agree a price with Dortmund for Hummels before the clubs meet in the German Cup final on May 21.
But Dortmund’s fans made their feelings known as they face up to the reality of losing a third star to Bayern in three years.
Several signs at Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park stadium during the Wolfsburg match simply read “Why?” – directed at Hummels.
One huge banner on the stadium’s packed south terrace read “The captain is the first to go overboard – best to do it immediately!” and the loudest jeers came from that area.
“I want to make it clear it wasn’t 80 000, more like 8 000 or probably even less,” he said.
“I saw where they (the whistles) came from.”
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