Game stopped after throwing a cup in Bochum “Sad and not acceptable” – Sport

At VfL Bochum they have known their Pappenheimer and the problem of flying plastic cups not just since Friday evening. Shortly before Christmas, Max Kruse, who was still playing for Union Berlin at the time, complained bitterly after the match in Bochum about the “Ruhrpott-Asis” who kept sullying him with insults and beer mugs.

In the afternoon before the Friday evening game against Borussia Mönchengladbach, when 25,000 spectators were allowed into the stadium and thus a larger number for the first time in a long time, VfL had extra a video on youtube uploaded, in which you can see the team captain Anthony Losilla standing in the empty east stand and enjoying a beer from the Bochum brewery and VfL sponsor ‘Fiege’. Losilla is heard warning: “Fiege is not for throwing, but for drinking!” They had had a premonition at the club. And that has come true.

Even during the game, the Bochum stadium announcer warned his own fans again and again “please do not throw any objects onto the field”. But it didn’t help. In the 69th minute, 21 minutes before the regular end of the Bundesliga game and when the score was 2-0 for the guests from Gladbach, a beer mug that was apparently at least partially filled flew out of Block A on the opposite stand in the direction of linesman Christian Gittelmann and hit him on the back of his head. This throw could not have had any other target than him, for example a Gladbach player, because there was no player in the vicinity. Gittelmann ducked briefly when the cup hit him, then he picked up the now empty cup from the lawn and threw it sullenly behind the advertising board, shaking his head demonstratively as a sign of incomprehension. Then he dropped his flag and crouched down, one knee on the grass and rubbing the back of his head.

When the worried referee Benjamin Cortus approached, Gittelmann gave him a thumbs-up to indicate that he was unharmed. Nevertheless, the game was immediately stopped. The referees retired to the dressing room together. Both teams too. After a 19-minute break, the stadium announcer announced at 10:19 p.m. that the game had been abandoned. The stadium emptied, people went home.

Gittelmann was dazed, Cortus described later in the evening. The 39-year-old assistant referee from the Palatinate was driven to a Bochum hospital by paramedics and accompanied by the second linesman, Florian Heft. Cortus said of Gittelmann’s thumb gesture: “After the game in the dressing room, he said that you were still under adrenaline, but when it subsided, you really noticed it.” Cortus said unequivocally: “In the event of a physical attack on a game official, there is no alternative to abandoning the game.”

Gladbach were 2-0 up at that point with goals from Alassane Plea (55′) and Breel Embolo (61′). So it was exactly the result that counted, with which the game should also be counted, should it be decided in favor of Borussia Mönchengladbach at the green table. Which is very likely. That was also the case on April 1, 2011, when a Bundesliga game was abandoned for the seventh and last time. Schalke 04 also led 2-0 at FC St. Pauli in Hamburg when linesman Thorsten Schiffner was hit by a cup from the crowd in the 88th minute. St. Pauli was declared a loser by the sports court of the German Football Association a few days later, on the grounds that the hosts were responsible for their spectators and were therefore responsible for the game being abandoned.

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So now, almost eleven years later, the eighth game abandoned in Bundesliga history. “That’s sad and unacceptable,” said VfL sporting director Sebastian Schindzielorz. “It’s embarrassing,” said Bochum’s assistant coach Markus Gellhaus, who stood on the sidelines instead of the corona-infected and domestically isolated coach Thomas Reis. Gladbach’s coach Adi Hütter also saw the scandal at home on television. Because of a corona infection, he was replaced by his assistant Christian Peintinger in the second game in a row. “It’s sad that a game has to end like this,” said Peintinger. “No one wants a game to end like this,” said Gladbach’s sporting director Roland Virkus, “the atmosphere was good, Bochum has a cool crowd, actually.”

FC St. Pauli at that time, subsequently relegated, was not allowed to play their first home game of the following 2011/12 season in the second division at their home stadium at Millerntor as a punishment after sporting legal back and forth, but had to play at least 50 kilometers away and decided for the Lohmühle stadium in Lübeck, 80 kilometers away. In front of 10,093 spectators they defeated FC Ingolstadt 2-0.

“We have to apologize in all form to the assistant referee Christian Gittelmann,” said VfL sporting director Schindzielorz late on Friday evening with regret. He is counting on the consequences for his club. But Schindzielorz was also angry at the still unknown perpetrator because they still had more than 20 minutes of playing time to maybe even out the 0:2 deficit. “Who knows how it would have gone,” he said. After all: Bochum already has 32 points seven games before the end of the season. The Ruhrpott club is not immediately threatened with relegation like that of St. Pauli. Then the cup shooter would have had an even bigger impact on things.

At 1.27 a.m. on Saturday night, VfL Bochum sent another statement by email. They apologized again to linesman Gittelmann and explained: “The focus is now on identifying the perpetrators. The evaluation of the pictures is ongoing. In the event of an identification, VfL Bochum will take steps, for example banning the stadium, expelling the club or withdrawing the season ticket. He reserves the right to claim damages in front.” In the club, they firmly assume that VfL Bochum will be “punished by the association”. They know their Pappenheimer, but they didn’t expect it to come to this directly in the game after their explicit video warning.