FRANKFURT -- Audi's executive board, including CEO Rupert Stadler, has been sharply criticized by company managers, the German weekly paper, Bild am Sonntag, reported on Sunday, citing an internal dossier.
The board had shown no signals of a fresh start, change or readiness for the future, the paper quoted the report as saying. Workers were frustrated with "disastrous" indecisiveness, according to the dossier.
Stadler has come under fire for how he has handled the fallout from parent company Volkswagen Group's diesel emissions scandal.
Munich prosecutors have been investigating Audi on suspicion of fraud and criminal advertising in the United States, where the Volkswagen scandal broke in September 2015.
Stadler only got a five-year contract extension last month because of an agreement among supervisory board members that he would not serve out his full term, two sources close to the company's supervisory board have told Reuters.
An Audi spokesman said: "We deny plans to get rid of Stadler," adding that he declined to comment on the content of the dossier.
VW Group is looking at rehiring Karl-Thomas Neumann possibly to lead Audi, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters this month. Neumann, a former CEO of Continental and former head of VW's China operations, will quit General Motors' Opel/Vauxhall unit once the sale of GM's operations to PSA Group is complete.
Bild am Sonntag also quoted Oliver Blume, the head of Porsche, VW Group's sports-car division, as saying he had no interest in replacing Stadler.
"I have a dream job and am very happy at Porsche. Nothing else comes into question for me," he told the paper.
