MTV Gifhorn in the Braunschweig regional league is currently still on winter break, which is why the players and those responsible for the fifteenth place in the table had the weekend off. So far, so normal is the situation in everyday life in the Lower Saxony league – but no one could have expected that this news would be relevant for the Bundesliga. Neither did Tobias Krull, who, dressed in a shirt, took a seat in one of the VIP seats in the Volkswagen Arena on Saturday to watch the game of his youth club VfL Wolfsburg against 1. FC Köln.
From his seat, Krull watched an absolutely normal Bundesliga game for 14 minutes, which also included Cologne full-back Max Finkgräfe trying to clear a ball with full force into the sideline. However, he hit the assistant referee Thorben Siewer in the head from a short distance – which caused the game to take a somewhat tragic and at the same time strange turn. Siewer immediately lay down on the floor in a daze and had to be treated. After a short time it was clear that he could not continue, which is why fourth official Nicolas Winter moved to the position of linesman – and referee Sören Storks was given the task of activating a protocol that has not yet been used often in the Bundesliga is.
“In such cases, we have to make a stadium announcement in order to find a referee,” Storks later explained to the SZ when he had already made the acquaintance of his new team member over the radio: Krull, who was not the only one, spoke up in the stands after the announcement He is a sales consultant in a car dealership and a goalkeeper and sporting director at a national league team – but also has a referee’s license. So: shirt off, referee jersey on, radio cabling organized, both coaches greeted – welcome to the Bundesliga, Mr. Krull!
Duel debates and taking minutes – the temporary referee fits into the team of referees
“He was immediately a fully-fledged member of us,” says Storks, who once came to his Bundesliga debut as the fourth official because referee Felix Brych was injured at halftime. Now he was happy with the spontaneous substitution: Krull took part in duel debates, kept minutes of substitutions and cards and of course went into the dressing room after the game for a debriefing. It turned out very differently in the catacombs of the Wolfsburg stadium: The Cologne team in the away dressing room were probably quite happy with the 1-1 draw, but for the Wolfsburg team in the home dressing room, the well-known crisis mood from last autumn was gradually returning .
And there were mixed feelings in the referee’s booth. “One man’s suffering, another man’s joy,” Storks said of the afternoon’s events. Krull was of course happy about his involvement, but the other three referees went to the hospital after the game, where further examinations are currently being carried out on Siewer. At least: The colleague is “doing well given the circumstances,” says Storks.