If a team official, substitute, substituted or des
player who has been sent off the field or a third party enters the field of play
the referee:
– only interrupt the game if such a person intervenes in the game,
– expel the person from the playing field after the game has been stopped,
and
– take appropriate disciplinary action.
In the event of a stoppage of play due to interference by:
– a team official, a substitute or a substituted player
or sent off player will start the game with a direct
free kick or penalty kick continued,
– a third person restarts the game with a dropped ball.
When the ball goes into the goal and no player on the defending team
was prevented from playing the ball as a result of the interference, the goal counts
(even if there has been contact with the ball) unless the
Intervention was carried out by the attacking team
The rule that BILD and Sky liked to quote, namely §17 No. 4 of the legal and procedural code, is the following:
If a player was not entitled to play or bet in a game, that’s it
Game for the team that used this player culpably,
lost 0:2 and won 2:0 for the opponent, be it
because, after the use of the non-playable or useable
player has not yet been continued by the referee. In this
In this case, the game rating remains. No. 2. a), Paragraph 3 remains unaffected.
Even if it is often argued that – depending on the reading – Coman or Sabitzer (whereby according to the match report Süle was finally noted as a replacement for Coman) were not eligible to play or be used, this is not correct and misses what is meant by this passage.
What is meant by this is that a player is not on the eligibility list of the (in this case) licensed player team. Either because he was never registered on this one, for example, or he is missing due to a ban.
Both Coman and Sabitzer (or Süle) were therefore eligible to play and be used; a circumstance which is not altered by a change. Something different was the case in Wolfsburg back then, but I’ll go into that later.
In this case, only the first rule, rule 3 from the DFB rules, applies. And Dingert acted accordingly. Did he still make mistakes? Possible.
Because the question arises as to whether the game should have continued with an SR ball (which Dingert eventually did) or an indirect free kick for Freiburg. According to the last paragraph of number 5 of Rule 3, for any violation of Rule 3 that is not otherwise listed, a warning must be given to the player in question and the game must be restarted with an indirect free kick by the opponent. Number 7 grapples with the free kick but again with its own regulation, so the exact interpretation is not entirely clear to me here. Unfortunately, also regarding the yellow card, I failed to raise this with the referees with whom I spoke about the subject. In my opinion, the yellow card should have been given in any case, but the sports court will give Dingert a certain amount of leeway in a potential hearing; because Coman did not “maliciously” break the rule, but made a mistake, it will have been OK to let the yellow card stick in the context of tact. But yes, it would not have been wrong and actually necessary.
Apart from the two points of how exactly the consequences are then to be taken, the case itself is clearly regulated. An objection by Freiburg would not promise any success. In fact, there was also a precedent in this regard, which can be read here:
https://www.pressreader.com/germany/bietigheimer-zeitung/20211028/282394107661716
Almost the same thing happened. Here, the sports court rejected both FC Nöttingen’s objection to the game rating and the subsequent appeal.
In this context, people like to remember Wolfsburg, who were kicked out of the DFB Cup due to a mistake in substitution. But the situation is different here: Wolfsburg had already changed five times, so another person was actually no longer eligible to play. In contrast to the incident in Freiburg, there is no other rule that would apply here, so VFL Wolfsburg culpably violated the DFB’s rules of engagement and procedure. (The same applies to past cases of violations of foreigner or amateur regulations)
But let’s spin the wheel further and would say that rule 3 of the DFB rules would not exist and we would therefore have to apply the same standards as in Wolfsburg:
In order for Freiburg to get a game rating, FC Bayern would have to have made the mistake at fault. Is that the case? Of course, this would be supported by the fact that it was Krüger (due to the new regulations imposed by Corona, the 4th official is no longer responsible for this) who entered the wrong jersey number on the scoreboard. However, this error would not necessarily result in the use of a player who was not eligible to use or play. In the case of Wolfsburg, this is irrefutably the case with the 6th change. The error only happened after Coman did not leave the field, but Sabitzer (or Süle) entered the field. Due to this error and precisely due to the behavior of an individual player, the club cannot be accused of culpable behavior.
A rating for Freiburg would be off the table. Now there is still the possibility of the game having to be replayed: In that case, we have to see whether the referee made a serious mistake that had a significant impact on the game. In fact, you also have to give the referee a relatively large share of the blame. Not only did the 4th official fail to check whether two Bayern players had left the field before the change was approved, Dingert himself even impatiently waved the hesitant Süle onto the field and thus created the majority.
But now the famous 17 seconds come into play. The users who say that it basically doesn’t matter whether it was 17 seconds or 17 minutes are not entirely wrong per se. In this case, however, it is relevant: Because the majority was of such short duration, the player did not intervene in the game and nothing else decisive for the game happened in the period, the sports court will decide that there is no serious error, the requires a replay of the game. (In fact, rule 3 of the DFB rules even allows the team concerned or even the extra person to score a goal themselves if the referee then blows the whistle and does not notice the mistake.)
In this respect, an objection would certainly fizzle out. But I think that Freiburg, also because of the precedent with FC Nöttingen, will do without it. However, I would gradually like to see a negotiation so that the public finally gets a clear picture of what is going on. Actually, the case is already clear and the technical experts of the set of rules in consensus, but due to the hype of the media, which then also quote wrong rules, the whole thing is cooked much hotter than it is eaten in the end.
Anyway, there’s sure to be a new topic coming up soon for all of us to bang our heads on.