After the hate posters against RB sports director Max Eberl, 1. FC Köln are threatened with an aftermath. The incident was noted in the match report.
Now there is an aftermath.
The pure hatred that RB sports director Max Eberl met on Saturday in the form of abusive posters from Cologne supporters could still have consequences for FC. Because referee Martin Petersen noted the incident in the game report – and thus put it on the agenda of the DFB.
Posters leave Eberl stunned
But should the referee have intervened during the Bundesliga game between 1. FC Köln and RB Leipzig (0-0)? “We noticed that posters were being shown, but we couldn’t read what was written there from the field,” said Petersen of the picture after Cologne fans had shown several insulting banners against Eberl, mocking his exhaustion illness, among other things .
If Petersen had read the texts, he said he “would have thought about measures and probably initiated them.” However, it is disputed whether the three-stage plan of the DFB, which provides for measures ranging from a stadium announcement to the abandonment of the game, applies in this case.
At least Eberl, who is not very popular in Cologne because of his past with arch-rival Gladbach, reacted stunned to the posters. “I would be interested to know if these people know exactly what burnout means. Burnout means that people exhaust themselves until they can no longer and beyond this point,” said the 49-year-old.
Cologne Managing Director Keller apologizes
Eberl had resigned from his position as Managing Director Sport at Borussia Mönchengladbach in January 2022 due to emotional overload and, after a break and a phase of self-discovery, had joined RB in December 2022, which was viewed critically by many. But since his return to professional football he has “never experienced” as much hatred and dislike as on Saturday in Cologne.
FC subsequently apologized, managing director Christian Keller (43) made it clear that the posters had not been brought into the stadium without approval: “If individual people are discriminated against, these are not the values of 1. FC Köln.”
Eberl’s defamation also caused a stir among Bundesliga rivals, with BVB sports director Sebastian Kehl describing the posters on Bild-TV as “unwearable”.
Not the first case of hate posters in the Bundesliga
A similar case occurred in September when Borussia Mönchengladbach fans showed abusive posters against Eberl in the game against Leipzig. At that time, the stadium announcer warned the fans to put down a poster, otherwise referee Patrick Ittrich would interrupt the game.
The three-step plan states that criticism in the form of banners or chanting can be “very direct, impolite, unobjective or distasteful” without disrupting play. This is only possible with “personified threats of violence”, such as a person in the crosshairs.
There was such a crosshair banner in Hanover in 2020, for example. At that time, the late Red Bull founder and RB shareholder Dietrich Mateschitz was the target of the 96 supporters, even the police were investigating. Hoffenheim owner Dietmar Hopp was also denigrated in the same way.
Gladbach was fined after the incident in September. It is still unclear what the consequences are for FC.