How similar the stories and times are! In the spring of 2004, the whole of Germany was talking about the referees – and their blatantly wrong decisions. The wrong whistles from the referees had a significant influence on the relegation battle. One club even considered filing a lawsuit against the DFB!
“Today you no longer just have to deal with the opponent before the game, but also with the referee. What kind of guy is he? Does he let a lot get away with it, does he whistle pettily? But that can’t be the case. Either there are rules or there is none. There is simply no clear line in the Bundesliga!” Kaiserslautern’s coach Kurt Jara was angry.
Although his club was three points ahead of the relegation place after matchday 26, the “Red Devils” had already had to endure seven clear bad decisions against them in the current season. A record value – which ultimately led to 1. FC Kaiserlautern having to worry about staying in the league until the last match day twenty years ago. A situation that understandably unnecessarily grated on nerves.
“It is not good!”
Legendary coach Hans Meyer once said so aptly: “Football is always the same with great regularity.” And so the sentences from the end of March 2004 are actually strikingly reminiscent of the sentences in the Bundesliga in the last few weeks. The dissatisfaction with the referee’s decisions is becoming increasingly louder at some clubs – and even a more level-headed representative of his guild, Christian Streich, was upset with the referee after last weekend’s game against league leaders Bayer Leverkusen (“It was all small things against us! It’s not good”) that you can only be surprised, then you realize how hot the kettle is now boiling in the league.
Back then, twenty years ago, 30 blatantly bad decisions by the referees led to the results being directly influenced. And at the time, two clubs that were in a relegation battle were particularly affected: Hannover 96 and Hertha BSC. In the current table after matchday 26, the two clubs were in 16th and 17th place; in a list adjusted for the errors, Hannover and Hertha would have ended up in 12th and 14th place. It’s understandable that these two clubs in particular raised the alarm in the spring of 2004 and made the “terrible conditions” around the referees an issue. But the DFB naturally didn’t want to know anything about it at the time.
“Can’t hear this whining anymore”
The now deceased referee spokesman Manfred Amerell said coldly and distantly when asked whether the referees would blow the whistle on the league: “A clear no! It’s like a long-playing record. I can’t hear this whining anymore. We won’t let it drive us crazy! ” And the DFB chief referee Hellmut Krug also rejected any criticism of his men with his whistle – and also put forward an almost grotesque thesis: “Often an alleged wrong decision really wakes up the affected team!” Pretty tough stuff, which ultimately contributed to Hannover 96, as one of the clubs that suffered the most, even considering filing a lawsuit against the German Football Association.
The record holder for wrong decisions in the 2003/04 season was referee Uwe Kemmling. The man from Burgwedel made an incredible ten mistakes – including all goal-related situations and dismissals – in just eleven games. A major mistake every 99 minutes. A crazy rate! And Kemmling was certainly no stranger to the Bundesliga.
The trained administrative employee had achieved national fame six years earlier in the FC Schalke 04 game against 1. FC Köln when, with the score 0-0, he did not count a clear handball by Schalke’s Oliver Held in his own penalty area as such. Although he questioned the player at the time, he denied having played the ball with his hand. 1. FC Köln lost the game 0-1 and was relegated to the second division at the end of the season.
“You can’t handle it!”
At the weekend in Freiburg, after SC’s narrow 2-3 defeat against Bayer Leverkusen, Christian Streich criticized referee Harm Osmers’ performance in an unusually clear manner. Although he found it “a bit exaggerated” to say that the referee was Leverkusen’s 12th man, he still said: “It’s unfair because you’re already completely on the edge anyway. You’re working like crazy, we are play every three days and then the fact that a team like that, which has such individual quality anyway, gets all the 50:50 decisions for itself is wrong, that’s not possible. You can’t cope with that!”
For the Freiburg coach, the headwind to the harsh words came not only from the DFB and the referees. Fans and the media also criticized Streich for this and advised him to “take care of his own nose” first and foremost. A pattern that even twenty years ago served as a proven defense reaction.
This is what referee Herbert Fandel said in the spring of 2004 about the emerging criticism from the clubs: “It is always the easiest way to blame the referee instead of looking for your own mistakes. Unfortunately, coaches have been taking this route more and more recently.” Another sentence by the pianist and school principal from Bitburg was interesting at the time.
Because long before referees in the Bundesliga were paid professionally and many years before the introduction of VAR, Fandel said: “The robot referee will never exist, so there will always be mistakes.” We now know that even the technical aids have not made football overall less error-prone, let alone error-free and therefore fairer.
In the summer of 2004, both Hannover 96 and Hertha from Berlin managed to save themselves – despite the serious wrong decisions against themselves. Both clubs remained in the Bundesliga. Just like SC Freiburg, by the way. The Breisgauers under coach Volker Finke were lucky with the bad referee decisions.
“Everything evens out over the course of the season”
After the 26th matchday, the referees had decided four times in favor of SC Freiburg and not once against the team from the south of the republic. Accordingly, Breisgau’s captain, goalkeeper Richard Golz, had a good time when he expressed the widespread hope of all disadvantaged teams: “I believe that everything will balance out over the course of the season.”
The fans and officials of VfL Bochum are now also hoping that there could be something to it. When they heard Streich’s words, they immediately remembered their own games against SC Freiburg this season. One was just a few days ago. And even if the Breisgauer coach probably saw things differently in this game, observers on site were sure that there were at least legitimate doubts about the referee’s performance (“In two controversial decisions, Marco Fritz’s whistle remains silent”). But who knows: There are still eight matches to be played – and perhaps VfL Bochum will also have luck on their side in one of these games?! Almost as compensatory justice. Just as Richard Golz’s conciliatory words suggested at the time.