The Referee GmbH, which was spun off from the German Football Association (DFB), is expanding its management team. As the DFB announced, Peter Sippel will in future act as sporting director of the 1st Bundesliga. Rainer Werthmann takes on the same task in the 2nd Bundesliga, Florian Meyer was appointed for the 3rd Bundesliga.
In addition, Jan-Hendrik Salver was appointed head of the assistant referees, while Jochen Drees is responsible for the video assistants and technologies division. Lutz Michael Fröhlich, the long-standing sporting director of the elite referees, had already taken over the management of the “Sport and Communication” division.
The aim of the sporting director model was “to have a contact person for every league for all questions relating to the further development of the referees and the current events on the match days,” said Fröhlich. It’s about “facing the growing and changing challenges and preparing the Bundesliga referee team for the future,” added Sippel.
DFB Schiri GmbH was spun off on January 1, 2022.
