Referee boss Fröhlich rejects Gräfe’s criticism

Referee chief Lutz-Michael Fröhlich has emphatically rejected the recent attacks by ex-referee Manuel Graefe. “We have to deal with criticism. Especially if it is technically well-founded and justified. We all make mistakes sometimes,” said Fröhlich sports1. But you have a problem with “general criticism. These are insubstantial platitudes.”

Gräfe had sharply criticized the German referees after the Bundesliga game between Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich (2:1). “If you want to illustrate the wrong development of personnel over the last decade, then that such referees were sponsored by the DFB up to the highest group of UEFA, but the performance never justified it,” Graefe tweeted.

In an interview with the Picture-Zeitung, the 49-year-old, who is still in a legal dispute with the DFB, added: UEFA recently informed the DFB refereeing team about the “lack of quality”. “Then there was a crisis meeting between Lutz Michael Fröhlich and Co. and the German FIFA referees,” said Graefe. UEFA said he “didn’t agree with the services and was concerned”.

Fröhlich vehemently contradicted Gräfe’s account. “That’s not true. No one from UEFA has approached the DFB refereeing management to tell us about the lack of quality of the referees in Germany,” said the 65-year-old. They met with the FIFA referees for a meeting, “but that was the main reason that we had a meeting with the Association of German Football Teachers just one day later to exchange ideas with coaches about how to deal with and the Communication with each other. It had nothing to do with the context of ‘crisis’ or ‘poor refereeing’.”