Former Bundesliga referee Manuel Graefe has denied the allegation that his repeated criticism of the referee board of the German Football Association (DFB) has selfish reasons.
“The personal billing thing is a fairy tale. It’s a clumsy attempt to downplay criticism so that you don’t have to deal with it,” said Graefe on Sunday at “Sport1”: “Many players, coaches and fans see week after week Week that things aren’t going well. But you’d rather keep shuffling around. It’s arrogant and pretentious to brush off criticism like that.”
Referee boss Lutz Michael Fröhlich recently said that he had no understanding of Graefe’s criticism. “We rate the form in which a former referee uses the current discussion to publicly express his personal opinion less constructively,” said Fröhlich.
Gräfe left the Bundesliga referee group after the previous season because he had reached the age limit. He complained about age discrimination and has been one of the association’s harshest critics ever since.
At “Sport1” Gräfe repeated his harsh criticism of the refereeing around Fröhlich.