German Football Association
RB Leipzig now hosts the cup – Teutonia under stress
View of the Red Bull Arena Leipzig. photo
© Jan Woitas/dpa
The DFB Cup match between Bundesliga club RB Leipzig and Hamburg regional league club Teutonia Ottensen has been postponed. “The reason for this is that the pitch in Dessau is unplayable,” said the German cup winner.
The DFB Cup match between Bundesliga club RB Leipzig and Hamburg regional league club Teutonia Ottensen has been postponed. “The reason for this is that the pitch in Dessau is unplayable,” said the German cup winner.
The first round game will now take place on August 30 (8:46 p.m. / ZDF) in Leipzig. “We are now complying with the DFB’s request to hold the match in the Red Bull Arena. A special regulation of the home right exchange applies, which now grants RB Leipzig home right in this cup round,” the message said.
“We went through various scenarios together. After weighing up all the options, this is the best solution,” said Peter Frymuth, Vice President of Game Operations and Football Development at the German Football Association (DFB).
Teutonia Ottensen loses home rights
The game was supposed to be kicked off in Dessau’s Paul-Greifzu Stadium. However, the turf there was so damaged that the playing field cannot be brought back into a playable condition in the short time. The DFB also announced that the option of replacing the turf had to be discarded, as experts considered the time until the game to be too short and the condition of the turf substructure to be too bad.
As an amateur club, the fourth division team from Hamburg loses home rights against the defending champion. Teutonia was not allowed to use their own stadium because of the artificial turf, the second division clubs FC St. Pauli and Hamburger SV did not want to make their arenas available for a game against RB Leipzig. The move to Dessau, almost 400 kilometers away, was therefore to take place. Of the 20,000 tickets, over 7,000 have been sold so far, and these are no longer valid.
The short-term transfer poses problems for the people of Hamburg. “We are under stress,” said Teutonia President Liborio Mazzagatti. “The reversal has started.” It is about the withdrawal of the preparations in the Dessau stadium. “We have been organizing for a month and a half. After all, we were the hosts. We prepared the stadium, for example built places for the TV cameras, organized generators and more.” Mazzagatti was unable to say to what extent the move to the RB Arena, around 70 kilometers away, would affect the support of Hamburg fans.