Legendary photo with Schumacher
Referee icon Dieter Pauly is dead
February 14, 2024, 10:26 p.m
Dieter Pauly refereed European Cup finals, a DFB Cup final and a game at the 1988 European Football Championship in Germany. But what is iconic is a moment from the Bundesliga referee Toni Schumacher. Now the long-time referee has died at the age of 81.
The long-time Bundesliga referee Dieter Pauly has died at the age of 81. The Mönchengladbach native became famous primarily through the “Sports Photo of the Year 1981,” which shows him nose to nose with goalkeeper Toni Schumacher. You can see the excitement in both of them, and the tension of the moment can be felt even more than 40 years later when you look at them. The picture was taken by photographer Dieter Wiechmann, who died last week at the age of 79.
On May 30, 1981, the iconic moment between referee and goalkeeper occurred on matchday 32 of the Bundesliga between Schumacher’s 1. FC Cologne and Borussia Dortmund. Schumacher was loudly upset, whereupon Pauly replied, according to the Cologne “Express”: “If anyone here is screaming, it’s me, Mr. Toni! You go straight back into the goal and you take the yellow card with you!” Pauly later told the “Rheinische Post” that he thought it was “great that there is something that is not forgotten.”
The “Spiegel” writes in its obituary for Pauly that he and Schumacher spoke out shortly after the game. The goalkeeper even chose Pauly to be the referee for his farewell game – and the titles of the two’s memoirs were similar. While Schumacher’s highly controversial work was titled “Final Whistle”, the referee published his memories as “Final Whistle”.
From 1980 to 1990, Pauly led exactly 100 games in the Bundesliga, the DFB Cup final in 1986 (FC Bayern against VfB Stuttgart), the European Cup Winners’ Cup final in 1988 (KV Mechelen against Ajax Amsterdam), the UEFA Super Cup in 1984 (Juventus Turin against Liverpool FC) and the preliminary round game between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union at the 1988 European Championship in Germany. He was named Referee of the Year three times. In 1990, Pauly was the first DFB referee to be honored with a farewell game. The local Borussia and Ajax Amsterdam met on the Bökelberg in Mönchengladbach. According to “Spiegel”, Pauly spent the last years of his life in Thailand, on the “dream island of Koh Samui”.