Politics Oliver Ruhnert was initially active in the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and left the party after the
2005 federal election. From 2007, Ruhnert worked as a local politician for the
Left Party. Ruhnert was the
parliamentary group leader of his party in the Iserlohn city council and a member of various city committees. He stood for election as mayor of
Iserlohn in 2009. At the end of May 2024, he switched to the
Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and was nominated in November 2024 by the
Berlin state board of the BSW to number 1 on the
state list for the
2025 German federal election. The BSW received less than the
five percent hurdle and did not enter the Bundestag.
Sports In the 2001/02 season he was coach of
FC Gütersloh in the
Oberliga Westfalen. Since then he has worked as a coach for
SF Oestrich-Iserlohn and
FC Iserlohn until 2017 and was also employed as a scout at
FC Schalke 04 for the 2007/08 season. After
Markus Högner was sacked in May 2009, he took over training of Schalke's second team together with
Sven Kmetsch. In January 2010 Ruhnert was replaced by
Michael Boris and then worked as a scout again. From 1 June 2011 to 31 July 2017 he was head of the youth department at Schalke. From 2014 onwards he was director of the
Knappenschmiede and promoted the development of
Bernard Tekpetey, among others. From August 2017 he was chief scout at
1. FC Union Berlin Ruhnert holds a B-license as a trainer. He is also active as a referee in the
district league. == Works ==