The DFB control committee sentenced Dortmund’s Jude Bellingham after his controversial testimony to referee Felix Zwayer following the 2: 3 defeat against FC Bayern last Saturday in single judge proceedings after an indictment to a fine of 40,000 euros. The association announced this on Tuesday.
In its judgment, the DFB spoke of unsporting behavior. The English youngster can avoid a suspension, which was also up for discussion. After a preliminary investigation was launched against Bellingham on Monday, the player himself had to make a statement. Now the judgment has been made, which BVB has already approved and which is therefore legally binding.
“You give a referee who was involved in match-fixing the most important game in Germany. What do you expect?” Bellingham said shortly after the final whistle about referee Felix Zwayer’s performance, who awarded Bayern a much-discussed penalty and BVB one had refused to do so in two cases.
With this statement, Bellingham alluded to the betting scandal from 2005, when Zwayer was one of the Berlin referees who brought down the former referee Robert Hoyzer with their statements. Zwayer was also banned for six months because he did not report the match fixing by Hoyzer and also accepted 300 euros from Hoyzer before a game between Wuppertaler SV and Werder Bremen II.
Gräfe vs. Zwayer: “Balance wasn’t right”
On the other hand, the complaint from referee observer Marco Haase from Hamburg, which he filed against Bellingham and ex-referee Manuel Gräfe, is still open. This was forwarded by the Dortmund police to the public prosecutor’s office, stating that it was about “insult, gossip and defamation”. After the game, Gräfe had in ZDFSports studio said: “I can absolutely understand the anger of the Dortmunders. The decisions were made at BVB’s expense and unfortunately they were decisive for the game.” In Zwayer’s line, “the balance was not right”.
Grafe belonged to the group of people who helped uncover the Hoyzer scandal. Although Zwayer was never specifically proven that match manipulation was carried out, Graefe made it clear in Zeit-Magazin in 2020: “Anyone who has once accepted money and kept Hoyzer’s manipulation secret for half a year should not whistle in professional football”. The former referee Urs Meier made a similar statement in an interview with SPOX and GOAL: “If I had been chief referee at the DFB and there had been a referee who would have accepted money, he would never have been a referee for me. There would be zero tolerance.”
