It’s Tough out there for Referees in Germany

There have been a lot of discouraging headlines coming out of Germany the past few days regarding the increase in fan violence that is taking place at some of the country’s lower level stadiums. This has led the German Football Federation to set up a task force to try to tackle the issue before it gets even more out of hand.

One of the more remarkable things I have come across related to this is a story that details some of the abuses referees in Germany have encountered in the past few months. Among the incidents:

* A German Cup match was abandoned after a referee was hit and hurt by a cup of beer thrown by a known hooligan;
* A referee was knocked down and kicked in the genitals repeatedly by a player;
* A death threat was left in a referee’s changing room informing him of the consequences of not letting the home team win:
* A referee had to lock himself in the changing room to avoid an angry mob of youth players;
* A linesman was hospitalized after a referee stabbed him with his flag;
* In Siegen-Wittgenstein, they are considering playing lower level games without referees at all.

In a country where 80,000 matches occur each weekend there are bound to be some isolated incidents, but the pure craziness of it all makes you wonder if German referees shouldn’t take some advice on how to handle matters from this guy.

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Category: Bundesliga