Prognosis from ex-referee Merk
“We’re going to have a huge problem”
October 31, 2025 – 5:07 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Referee decisions in the second round of the DFB Cup sparked discussions. Markus Merk has a clear stance on this – and doesn’t see the problem in the VAR.
He knows what he’s talking about, after all, Markus Merk himself was on the pitch as a referee for years. But the former world referee doesn’t like the latest developments in German refereeing. The 63-year-old sharply criticizes the performance of the current referees.
Above all, he supports the opinion of Lukas Kwasniok. After his team’s cup exit against FC Bayern, the coach of 1. FC Köln was upset that referee Tobias Welz had ruled Luis Díaz’s equalizer to make it 1-1 despite being offside. “If you’re always traveling with a navigation system, at some point you won’t learn these streets anymore, you’ll forget it. You can rely on the VAR, and suddenly it’s not there,” said Kwasniok. For “capacity reasons,” as the DFB called it, the video assistant will only be used from the cup round of 16 onwards.
For Merk, it is not a cup game, but a Bundesliga duel that serves as an example of what he sees as a fundamental problem in German football. Specifically, the former FIFA referee looks back on the game between Borussia Mönchengladbach and FC Bayern Munich (0:3). There, Gladbach’s Jens Castrop initially only saw yellow after a hard foul on Bayern newcomer Luis Díaz. Only after VAR intervened was the decision converted into a red card. Incomprehensible to Merk.
He also explained: “If I then need minutes on the screen to make the right decision – I really can’t think of anything else. That’s an endless lack of skills. That’s the basic problem.” Mark therefore does not believe that discussions about introducing VAR in the first rounds of the DFB Cup make sense, as this would not address the cause of the problems, but only the symptoms.
“After years you see that we have many more errors without the video assistant. And now it suddenly says: ‘We would need the video assistant in the first rounds.’ No, we simply need better referees as a first step. Then with the video assistant we have fewer and shorter interruptions.”