Bayer Leverkusen executive manager Reiner Calmund has confirmed he will retire in 2006 and would like Germany coach Rudi Voeller to succeed him.

“I will stop in 2006 and Rudi would be the perfect successor,” Calmund told Express newspaper.

“He is my favourite candidate by a long way. He would be ideal to represent the club because he knows football so well and is such a popular figure.”

Voeller finished his playing career at Leverkusen in 1996 and acted as the club’s sports director until his appointment as coach of Germany in 2000.