Soccer: Struggling Hamburg sack CEO, sports director

BERLIN (Reuters) - Relegation-threatened Hamburg SV sacked CEO Heribert Bruchhagen and sports director Jens Todt on Thursday as the former European champions have failed to win a game in 12 matches.

Hamburg, the only team to have played in the Bundesliga every season since the top league's creation in 1963, are languishing in 17th place on 18 points, seven adrift of the relegation playoff spot. They will face Bundesliga leaders Bayer Munich on Saturday.

Coach Bernd Hollerbach, who replaced sacked Markus Gisdol in January, will remain in his post, the club said.

"After deep analysis of the overall situation we have decided to take this step and start new," said chairman of the board Bernd Hoffmann in a club statement after earlier informing the coach of the club's decision.

The six-times German champions narrowly avoided what would have been a third relegation playoff in four years last season but after a good start to the current campaign they have now lost seven of their last 10 matches.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Pritha Sarkar)