Dortmund boss defends under-fire Aubameyang

Dortmund resume their Bundesliga campaign after the winter break on Sunday at home to Wolfsburg with star striker Aubameyang hoping to add to his tally of 13 goals in 15 league games.

He is also just two short of scoring his 100th Bundesliga goal.

However, Aubameyang, last season’s top scorer in Germany, earned heavy criticism in the German media after being suspended last November by the club for turning up late to training and an unauthorised video shoot.

Dortmund captain Marcel Schmelzer recently admitted constant speculation, mostly linked to Chinese clubs, about Aubameyang’s future also distracts the squad.

Aubameyang further irked the media last week after checking his father and brother into the team hotel during Dortmund’s winter training camp in Marbella, Spain, criticism which, Watzke says, was unjustified.

“In all this scrutiny, which is an extravagence as far as I am concerned, we mustn’t forget one thing: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is a total professional,” Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke told German daily Die Welt.

“I don’t like the way he is being presented by the German tabloid media, which is getting ever broader and who, incidentally, will miss him when he doesn’t play here anymore.”

Watzke said France-born Aubameyang’s decision to let family members stay in the team hotel was blown out of proportion and it would have been wrong to have asked them to stay elsewhere.

“For someone from a different culture than ours, that would have been a terrible insult – worse than us pedantic Germans could imagine,” said Watzke.

The Dortmund CEO insists Aubameyang’s family “did not bother anyone. It was a storm in a tea cup. Pierre-Emerick is who he is.”

As to any transfer speculation about the Gabon hot-shot, “there is no agreement with anyone whatsoever, I recommend keeping to the facts,” Watzke added.