Because of “crisis meeting”
Referee boss contradicts chief critic Gräfe massively
03/22/2023, 06:35 am
The DFB referees do not come to rest. The performance of the officials has been discussed for weeks. Again and again the quality is denied to you and the VAR. Ex-referee Manuel Gräfe is particularly good at this. He ignites and ignites. Now the boss is fighting back.
Referee boss Lutz Michael Fröhlich has rejected ex-referee Manuel Graefe’s claim that the European Football Union was dissatisfied with the German referees. There was also no crisis meeting between Fröhlich and the German FIFA referees. “That’s not true. Nobody from UEFA contacted the DFB refereeing management to tell us about the lack of quality of the referees in Germany,” said Fröhlich at Sport1.
Accordingly, there was a meeting with the German FIFA referees, but for a different reason. “But the main reason was that just one day later we had a meeting with the Association of German Football Teachers to talk to coaches about how to deal with and communicate with each other. That had nothing to do with the ‘crisis’ or ‘context’ poor refereeing’,” said Fröhlich.
Aytekin is also more than annoyed
Graefe had previously criticized the German referees in the aftermath of the Bundesliga game between Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich (2: 1). “Overall, there are too few top referees. UEFA recently informed the DFB referee management of the lack of quality. As a result, Lutz Michael Fröhlich & Co. had a crisis meeting with the German FIFA referees. UEFA is with the services I don’t agree and I’m worried. So I don’t have this opinion exclusively,” said Graefe of the “Bild” newspaper.
Fröhlich can’t do much with that: “What is actually tiring is what Deniz Aytekin has already expressed. That’s general criticism. These are insubstantial platitudes.” The 49-year-old Gräfe accuses the DFB of age discrimination after the end of his own Bundesliga career and therefore sued the association.