On Friday evening, referee Sascha Stegemann caused a lot of trouble with a momentous wrong decision in the district duel between VfL Bochum and BVB (1:1). An ex-colleague of the referee has now cleared up fan theories about a connection to Bayern.
Borussia Dortmund, everyone now agrees, was denied a clear penalty in Bochum. Karim Adeyemi was clearly hit by opponent Danilo Soares in the second period, but the penalty was not awarded.
After the final whistle, the anger in the BVB camp was correspondingly high, sporting director Sebastian Kehl described referee Stegemann’s decision as “cowardly and completely wrong”.
Criticism of the appointment of video assistant Robert Hartmann from the Bavarian Football Association also came up on social media. However, former FIFA referee Thorsten Kinhöfer does not see this as a problem.
“These are conspiracy theories for me,” said Kinhöfer on “Bild-TV”. Hartmann from the Allgäu lives further away from Munich than Stegemann (Niederkassel) from Dortmund.
Video referee with a present from FC Bayern? Kinhöfer waves it off
Kinhöfer also did not want to overestimate a photo circulating on the Internet that shows Hartmann with a gift with the FC Bayern lettering during a training course for Bavarian referees.
“It’s also natural for me that there is a gift. There’s either a bottle of wine or a bottle of gin, in which case there was a jersey. I don’t think it’s reprehensible if an experienced Bundesliga referee also the amateur referees, train them or accompany them at Christmas parties,” says the 54-year-old.
For Kinhöfer it is meanwhile clear that the main error in the non-existent penalty is “clearly” with video referee Hartmann. But Stegemann is “the one who gets the beating”.
Kinhöfer reported that he had spoken to Stegemann, who had publicly admitted to the mistake several times, on the phone: “You can imagine, when you’re being driven through the village like a sow, that you don’t feel well.”