BOCHUM (dpa-AFX) – With clear words and the hope for help from the ranks of the fans, VfL Bochum’s CEO Hans-Peter Villis reacted to the momentous cup throwing scandal in the Ruhr Stadium. It was only the eighth time in the history of the Bundesliga that a game had to be abandoned. And like the last time in April 2011, an assistant referee was hit by a drinking cup.
“We don’t want to have anything to do with fans like that,” Villis told the “Bild” (Saturday) and added: “There are a few fans here who don’t have their hands and their brains under control, but they’re individuals.” That is not the behavior of VfL, emphasized the club boss: “They are just idiots who drag the image of the club down.”
Assistant referee Christian Gittelmann even had to go to the hospital after the scandal. He was hit in the head by the cup in the 68th minute. “He was dazed,” referee Benjamin Cortus told several TV stations. It was 2-0 for the visitors of Borussia Mönchengladbach when the incident happened and the game was ultimately abandoned.
“No one in the world would want a football game to end like this,” said Gladbach sporting director Roland Virkus: “The atmosphere was good, a cool vibe, a good crowd actually. It annoys me that it ends like this. Was it just one person? There we have to take care of each other, something like that shouldn’t happen.”
The DFB could not initially be reached for comment on Saturday morning. The control committee will probably start the investigation after the scandal. In paragraph 14, paragraph 4 of the rules of the game of the German Football League, with reference to the DFB rules, it is regulated that if a team is at fault for the termination, the game is to be scored at least 2-0 for the innocent team. The decision is made by the legal bodies of the DFB.
In the last such case, the game between FC St. Pauli and FC Schalke 04 was scored 2-0 for the guests after assistant referee Thorsten Schiffner was hit in the neck with a full beer mug two minutes before the end on April 1, 2011 . At the time, Schalke was also 2-0 up.
The Bochum-based company has already announced that it reserves the right to claim damages. “Because we assume that VfL will be punished by the association,” says a statement. The evaluation of the images by the police is still ongoing, and VfL will actively support them in their investigations. “A few people are destroying everything we’ve been building here for years. It’s hard, it’s terrible,” said Villis./jmx/DP/stk