On Friday, 28 February 2025, the DFB Federal Court of Justice, the court of second instance, upheld the ruling of the DFB Sports Court to re-evaluate the match played on on 14 December 2024, between 1. FC Union Berlin and VfL Bochum.

The game had been stopped for several minutes in stoppage time after a lighter thrown from the standing areas grazed the Bochum goalkeeper's head. After extensive consultation with the sporting directors of both sides and the security officers, referee Martin Petersen had decided that there were no grounds for abandoning the game. The game continued with a sporting ‘non-attacking pact’ agreed between the two sides and was eventually ended by the referee with the result unchanged at 1-1.

The board of 1. FC Union Berlin has issued the following statement on the rulings of the DFB courts:

We would like to make it perfectly clear that throwing objects onto the pitch is anti-social behaviour and unacceptable. The perpetrators must be identified, punished and kept out of stadiums for as long as possible. All of this has been done in the current case: we immediately identified and detained the person who threw the lighter and handed him over to the police before the game continued. The perpetrator was severely punished by us and the longest stadium ban possible in Germany was imposed.

On the pitch, after the throw, there were two teams, both of which were affected by the misconduct of a spectator. One of the teams was weakened because a player could not continue playing. However, this could not have a negative effect because 1. FC Union Berlin’s players did not take advantage of it, no longer attacking the weakened VfL Bochum instead. The game was continued by both teams in a fair and sporting manner, taking into account the special situation, and was duly ended by the referee. Only VfL Bochum themselves can explain why they want to gain a one-sided sporting advantage from this situation, which was equally distressing for both teams.

The DFB sporting juristiction, on the other hand, argues that VfL Bochum were weakened by 1. FC Union Berlin. This is not only factually wrong because the culprit was identified and removed from the stadium before the game continued. Legally, the sports court has thus equated the culprit with the host team, who were was also affected by the culprit's actions. 

This argument is also flawed because, in doing so, the DFB courts are treating the fair sporting behaviour of the team that was not weakened vis-à-vis the weakened team in the last two minutes of stoppage time as punishable. They are disregarding the referee's factual decisions and proper margin of discretion and are re-evaluating the game contrary to the actual sporting outcome.

This decision by the DFB sports court is disastrous for football. Instead of protecting the sporting competition and the participating clubs, even from individual perpetrators in the stands, for the first time in German football, a sporting result has been re-evaluated to punish the misconduct of a spectator.

The responsibility for this punishment, however, is with the organiser, the state regulatory authorities or the ordinary courts. It is not the responsibility of a sports court. A sports court must do everything in its power to protect and preserve the sporting result. Re-evaluating sporting results to punish the misconduct of spectators or for general preventive reasons is a false and dangerous approach. It can inflict greater damage on football than the misconduct of individual spectators ever could.

The statements made yesterday by the DFB control committee - and their intentions - are alarming. The past shows that the previous failed sanctions policy with exorbitantly increasing fines for the use of pyrotechnics or other misconduct by groups of spectators or individual perpetrators, for example, has not had any preventive effect. On the contrary, the use of pyrotechnics has increased steadily.

Instead of questioning this failed policy and realigning it together with the clubs, the DFB is now even interfering with the competition. The DFB is itself causing the very thing that spectator misconduct has never been able to achieve: endangering the integrity of sporting competition.

This dangerous development for football must be stopped. Therefore, we will first appeal to the Ständige Schiedsgericht für Vereine und Kapitalgesellschaften [Permanent Arbitration Court for Clubs and Corporations of the Licensed Leagues] and have the, in our view, incorrect application of the law reviewed. Our position is clear:

• If a team is weakened, then replay of the game without the weakening at the same location

• If the referee made a mistake due to not stopping play, then the game should be replayed at the same location

The DFB sports court has no discretion – and certainly no political one – to re-evaluate the proper and correct decisions of a referee. Therefore, the sporting outcome of the game should either remain at 1-1, or the game should be replayed at the same location.

Due to the fundamental importance for the integrity of the competition and thus for the protection of our club, we will also examine the possibility of taking civil action at the same time. The ongoing proceedings indicate that the DFB's judicial bodies are prioritising their desire to sanction spectators, i.e. people outside of this competition, over their actual mandate of protecting the sporting competition and the participating clubs. We must and will oppose this dangerous development for the sport with all legal means at our disposal.