DFB general secretary Heike Ullrich has urged all players in football to maintain respect.
“You have to respect your team-mates, opponents, referees, spectators and coaches – that’s the only way football can work,” said the representative of the German Football Association at the UEFA Respect Forum in Frankfurt. It needs “respect for everyone and each other”.
After all, football “breaks down barriers and brings people together who would otherwise never come together,” Ullrich explained to numerous national associations and club representatives: “Anyone who disregards the rules of respect must be severely punished.” In the course of this, she also recalled the 15-year-old who died at the end of May in a fight at a youth tournament in Frankfurt/Main.