After the heated 1-1 draw between FC Bayern and Bayer Leverkusen, referee Christian Dingert has been heavily criticized and Bayern president Herbert Hainer has now also spoken out
The Bundesliga match between FC Bayern and Bayer Leverkusen ended in a 1-1 draw, but hardly anyone spoke about the result after the final whistle. Instead, the performance of the refereeing team dominated the discussions. Several controversial scenes caused great displeasure among the Munich players – above all the yellow-red card against Luis Díaz and a disallowed goal by Harry Kane
While the anger was initially expressed loudly by honorary president Uli Hoeneß, club president Herbert Hainer also spoke out shortly afterwards. Hainer chose clear words – unusual for the otherwise rather reserved functionary. „Normally I don’t comment on referees,“ the Bayern president told BILD
But this time it was different. The referee had had „a bad day“. Hainer summed up his dissatisfaction with a typical Bavarian saying: „Sentence with X, that was probably nothing!“
Particularly bitter from the Munich side’s point of view: after the game, the referee himself admitted that he probably would not have given the yellow card against Díaz after seeing the TV pictures. For Hainer, this is „worthy of all honour“, but it could not change the course of the game
These scenes caused outrage
Two decisive moments are at the center of the discussion. In the 61st minute, substitute Kane scored a goal after touching the ball with his elbow. According to the TV images, referee Christian Dingert ruled a handball – the goal did not count
For Knut Kircher, head referee of the DFB, this was an extremely difficult situation. Dingert had acted correctly by looking at the scene again. In the end, he judged the movement to be an enlargement of the scoring area – and therefore an infringement of the rules. A decision that Kircher described in the BILD as „tricky“ and which, according to him, lies in the grey area
However, the excitement was even greater in the final phase. In the 84th minute, Díaz went to ground after a slight contact with Leverkusen keeper Janis Blaswich. Dingert judged the action to be a foul – and showed the Bayern attacking player a yellow card. A decision that was later corrected by the referee himself: after analysing the TV images, he admitted that the assessment had probably been wrong
While experts such as Didi Hamann and Lothar Matthäus described the decision on television as understandable, FC Bayern were left with frustration.